


A Path Not Chosen

by TheLadyJ



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, a mash up of all the seasons, but not much else from s4 and s5, east dillon did become a thing, mildly AU, most of what happened after season 3 didn't happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2017-12-31 13:56:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 45,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyJ/pseuds/TheLadyJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fallback plans weren't actually supposed to be used! </p>
<p>Tim had a life he liked, he was happy. Can you believe it? But one game, one hit, changed all of that. </p>
<p>Suddenly, well not really so suddenly, he finds himself back in Dillon on a field he had called home nearly a decade before, trying to figure out why he was were he was and how to be happy again. </p>
<p>One conversation with one person has the potential to change his outlook on life.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>06/15/15 PSA This story is being continued. It will be around 12 chapters long. I have up to 7 done and am working on 8 right now. Thank you to anyone that reads this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Back in Dillon

**Author's Note:**

> Not really sure where I'm going with this, or if anyone will even read it because it's a fandom that isn't too active, but I needed to write it and well here we are. 
> 
> I saw a picture of Taylor Kitsch throwing a football around on the Broncos field a few days ago and couldn't get the idea of Tim all grown up playing pro-ball out of my head. *shrugs* this is the result.

Tim stood on the field, the ball clutched tight in his hands and sighed. It had been so long since he’d been back to Herrmann field. He always felt like the field, no matter which one he was standing on, was his home. It didn’t feel like that anymore.

Tim had lost his way recently. The career-ending knee injury that he had suffered at the hands of one of the Chargers linebackers had put his head in a funk. He wasn’t happy, in fact he had fallen back on old devices. 

He’d spent a year drinking and ruining his marriage as well as trying to cope with the fact that his life, the life he had worked so hard for, was over. He'd spent another year getting his head on straight again, sobering up and figuring out what life outside of the pros would hold for him.

He had fallback plans, of course he did. His old Coach and Mrs. T had made sure that he would have a fallback plan should something happen to him on the field. He had thought, at the time, that it was ridiculous, that nothing was going to happen to him. It was easy to feel invincible on the field, surrounded by padding, running for the endzones, guys, some twice his size, trying to take him down. Remembering what happened to Street had put things in perspective and Tim had found himself enjoying the sports medicine courses he had decided to look into. He hadn’t done more than take a few courses, nor had he gone on to get a degree outside of a four year in the basics, but he knew enough to be taken on as an assistant coach. 

Coach T had always been willing to take a chance on Tim, and that hadn’t changed. It felt good to know that at least one person still believed in him. He had lost everything else in his downward spiral, knowing that the Taylor’s were still on his side made everything a little more bearable.

“Ready for your big day?” The voice was startling in the silence of the field but not unwelcome. Tim turned to see her standing there, her long blonde hair flowing freely in the breeze. He hadn’t known she was in town.

“Big day?” he asked, turning back to stare at the end zone. He had smashed his way through countless guys only to stop running at that exact spot. 

“The day you stop being a player and start being a coach,” She said, her voice much closer than before. 

Tim looked over at her, his brow knit in irritation, though not at her… Never at her. He had stopped being a player the day he hurt his knee. Tim dropped the ball and sighed. “What are you doing here Jules?” he asked, not sure if he meant at the field where he was or in Dillon in general.

“Mom sent me looking for you, wanted to make sure you were ok.” She stooped to pick up the ball, her fingers threading through the laces, as if her tiny hands hand been made to hold the ball. “Considering I’m the only one that understands the way you think, they have officially enlisted me as the finder of Tim Riggins.” 

Tim smirked, a small ha! bubbling up from his chest and rolled his eyes. He looked around the field. His eyes falling on the stands, the call booth that sat at the top and everywhere else. The field and all its components held so many memories. Some really good… Others, really bad. “How do you always know where to find me?” he asked, walking away from her. 

“Just do.” Her voice grew quieter as he walked away. 

He came to a stop at the 30 yard line, so many injuries had happened on the field. All football fields held stories of careers lost. The one he remembered most clearly was not his own, it was his best friends. He had blamed himself for Street’s injuries both mentally and physically. Everyone had told him it wasn’t his fault. The coach had been the one to finally help him understand and accept the truth. Though that didn’t change the fact that he’d spent a large part of the last decade trying to fix the slights he had caused Six. He had been partially to blame for much of the mental anguish Street had suffered and he had done everything he could to make up for it. But no matter how many ways he tried to imagine it, he could not have possibly changed the outcome of the game that fateful day. 

He wanted to be the one that changed that though. He was there, at Dillon High school with knowledge and determination to make sure that what happened to Street and to him, wouldn’t happen to someone else. Tim knew that injuries were unavoidable, but the severity could be kept to a minimum in many circumstances. That was why he had taken the job, why he had agreed to be an assistant coach. It wasn’t because he liked kids, because he really didn’t. If he had to deal with a smart mouth jerk like he was when he was their age, he’d probably lay the kid out. But teaching the basics at the high school level, making sure that kids knew how to fall when getting tackled, making sure the kids knew how to tackle, was more important so he was willing to put his annoyance at the ages behind him and do what needed to be done. 

“Tim?” Her voice floated on the air like a whisper, his name a question on the tip of her tongue. 

Tim turned back to where Julie stood, he didn’t say anything, didn’t have anything to really say. He wasn’t ok. He wasn’t sure when he would be. His life had ended the day that guy had barreled into his knee, taking him out in midair. He’d seen the footage, saw exactly when everything went pear shaped. He could remember the feeling, as the helmet collided with the side of his knee. He could remember the crunch he felt in the knee as he landed hard on it and crumpled to the ground. The ball had been clutched tightly in his hands, he had been unwilling to lose the yards he gained for a simple knee injury. 

He’d been taken off the field on a stretcher, been sedated and sent to surgery. Waking up surrounded by friends and family was nice, until the news and the realizations set in. Nothing would be the same, he’d lost everything he worked for and in his anger he pushed everyone away. He drank. A lot. He found himself becoming the Riggins he was known for in high school. The kind of man he had decided long ago he never wanted to be. His marriage paid the ultimate price. 

Tim didn’t care. There wasn’t a lot he could find himself caring about at the time. Even now, after everything had shaped up, after he’d found his way out of the bottle, back on solid ground, he couldn’t bring himself to care about the way his marriage had ended. She got the house in Puget Sound, the nice car and a hefty amount of his bank account. Still he didn’t care. It was only money and that wasn’t happiness. 

He left Seattle after his wife left. He couldn’t live in a city like Seattle, it rained so goddamn much. He hated it there, it was nothing like Texas. Nearly worlds apart. The Seahawks had been good to him and he had suffered through the city because the team was worth it, but he didn’t have a reason to stay after everything. 

Dillon still held at least a small part of the heart he had at some point had. The only people he truly liked in the entire town were his brother, sister-in-law, their kids and the Taylor’s. 

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be alright Jules,” he said, walking back to her. 

Julie nodded, somehow she always understood him. Even in high school, though they hadn’t really been friends. Their brief living arrangement had endeared him to her. It was a strange friendship, one that was never really explored or grown on purpose. It simple grew through random chance. When they had gone their separate ways, different careers, different colleges, he hadn’t let distance come between them. Other friends he’d lost along the way, but he hadn’t been willing to let Julie go. Most of the time she was his voice of reason. It was always her voice in the back of his head telling him one of his ideas was stupid and to not do it. She had saved him from many bad choices without realizing it. He wasn’t sure what she got out of their friendship, but somehow she always stuck around. 

“Why are you in Dillon, Jules?” Tim asked. Last he had heard she was in Chicago with Matt. He hadn’t talked to her in a while, but he couldn’t imagine much had changed for her. 

She ran her hand through her hair, a movement she did often, but Tim never could help watching. Something was different though. He grabbed her hand as she brought it through the ends of her hair. 

“You’re missing something,” he said, looking at her hand. 

She pulled her hand out of his and stuffed it in her jeans pocket. 

“Jules?” 

“I don’t want to talk about it, Tim.” Her voice was firm and defensive and Tim recognized the warning it held. 

“Too bad. What happened?” Tim had never been one to heed warnings, least of all when Julie Taylor was the one at the center. 

“Let it be, Tim. Please?” Her eyes were bright; big and round. There was a sadness to them he hadn’t seen before and he really didn’t like it.

“What happened?” he asked again, his voice softer this time. He hadn’t felt anything in over a year, didn’t give a damn about other people and their feelings, it all meant nothing to him. Nothing had made him care, but seeing her looking like that, something shifted in his emotionless heart. The light that normally shown in her eyes was gone and that made him hurt. 

“Jules?” He reached out to touch her shoulder but dropped his hand, deciding to let it go. If she really wanted to talk about it, she would. 

Instead he stood beside her, content in the silence. They never talked much, it was kind of why he liked their friendship so much. It was the main reason he had worked so hard to keep in touch with her, even when other people slipped through the cracks. 

She never judged him, but she wasn’t one to suffer fools, so she had no problem putting him in his place when he was being an idiot. 

He sat down on the turf where he stood, and waited for her to leave or follow his actions. He smiled when she sat down beside him. “How long are you in Dillon for?” he asked, not looking at her. He wanted a beer, but the tiny little coin in his pocket reminded him why he couldn’t. 

Julie shrugged, “Indefinitely? Till tomorrow? Maybe I’ll get in my car after I leave here and just drive till I end up somewhere where no one knows me.” 

Tim nodded, he understood that desire. The impulse to run had taken hold of him many times. It was why he had been so well suited for the fullback position. He was good at running, not always the best at standing still though. 

"This isn't what I wanted, ya know?" Her voice wavered with emotion and Tim looked over at her. 

He wasn't sure what she was talking about, but he could understand. His own thoughts echoed her sentiments. 

"I thought I had it all, everything I wanted. God!" She laughed, it was cold and mirthless and didn't fit the sweet happy person Tim knew. “But I was so wrong.” 

Tim didn’t know what to say, he had been a horrible friend recently. He’d let her slip through the cracks, because he’d been too busy with his own shit. He had worked hard to keep her friendship when he was in college and even after. While he was on the road, while his wife was flipping out over the odd girl he still talked to from high school, still he kept in touch. But the injury and his own self pity had pushed her away too. 

“I called it off,” she said, her voice breaking through his mental ass kicking. “I didn’t want to be the stay at home mom, I didn’t want to be what Matt wanted me to be. I want a career and a life and I don’t want kids.” 

This topic wasn’t something he’d ever talked to her about. She and Matt were that couple that people strived to be, he knew that. He’d seen them together, been amazed by how their relationship had grown and changed. Matt was one of his best friends, though Julie was a better friend. He’d never talked to either of them about their relationship. Until Lana, he had been the wrong person to ask for relationship advice, he probably still was. 

“What’d Seven say?” 

“Not a whole hell of a lot honestly. I think he was relieved. You know Matt, God forbid he do anything to hurt anyone. He wanted out as much as I did, he just didn’t know how to say it.”

Tim nodded in understanding. That actually did sound like Matt. Though he couldn’t for the life of him understand why Matt would want out of his relationship with Julie. If there was one thing Tim knew it was that Matt and Julie were meant to be. Everyone in the whole damn town knew it. 

“So what now?” 

Julie breathed deeply and shook her head. “I don’t have any clue. I could look for a job, maybe the high school is looking for an English teacher… The idea of getting in my car and driving to the ends of the earth is extremely appealing.” 

Tim laid down on the turf, and sighed. “Take me with you.” He didn’t want to go back to his empty quiet house, it wasn’t a home, not yet anyway. He didn’t want to get up the next day, go back to Dillon High and be an assistant coach. He had no desire to follow the path his life was suddenly on, but it was better than the path he had been on. 

“No,” Julie said laying beside him, “they need you here. The Tim Riggins, Dillon’s own pride and joy.” She turned her head to look at Tim who just smiled. “Did you ever think you would become something so important that the whole town would fall in love with you? It’s like all your past transgressions, for which there are many,” Tim kicked her, but the smile on his face showed that it wasn’t out of anger, more for GP than anything. It made Julie laugh. The sound filled the air and it was music to Tim’s ears. “...were wiped clean,” she finished through her giggles. 

“Honestly, I never expected to get out of Dillon. I thought for sure I’d be… I don’t even know. But to go to school and play college ball, that wasn’t something I ever imagined. I have your parents to thank for that one.” When he thought about it that way, it really put everything in perspective. He’d been wallowing in the loss of the life he had worked so hard to get, but the fact was, the life he had left behind, the one everyone had thought he was destined for, was far worse than the life and the path he was currently living. 

“Thanks, Jules,” he said sitting up. “Guess I should be getting home, big day tomorrow after all, right?” He stood up and put his hand out for hers. 

“You staying out here or are you going back to your parents?” Tim pulled her to her feet and picked up the football that had been dropped and forgotten sometime ago. 

“I think I’m going to stay out here. Cogitate the meaning of that star…” she said, pointing to a star in the sky. 

Tim shrugged, not really sure what to say to that. “Have fun,” he decided was an acceptable answer. “If you decide to stick around, you know how to find me.” He waved and walked away. One conversation with Julie Taylor had put the world back on track for Tim. He hoped she would stick around, but if she didn’t he would make it a point to call her more.


	2. Julie's story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still not sure where this is going, or if it will be continued, but I will do my best not to leave cliffies at the end of chapters incase I never come back to the story. Really this is just me needing to get these characters voices out of my head. 
> 
> Not that anyone actually reads this, so I don't really need to explain... Oh well, if you are reading this, enjoy.
> 
> 06/15/2015 PSA : This story IS being continued. I have chapters 3-7 completed and beta'd. I will be finishing this story before I post it, but It is being continued so if you're reading this, know there will be more and the rating will be changing to at least M based on chapter eight. It may go to E as well.

Julie watched Tim walk away, a gentle smile on her face. He wasn’t a man of many words, but when he spoke, he generally had something important to say. Words were a weapon to Tim and not something he used often. She hadn’t talked to anyone about what had happened with Matt but a few questioned sentences from Tim and she’d spilled as much as she was willing to admit to. 

There was more to the story, she was sure Tim knew that, but the nice thing about Tim was he knew when to leave things alone. It wasn’t because he didn’t care, though many believed that to be true. It was because he understood the need for space and privacy. It wasn’t something often given in a small town like Dillon. Both Tim and Julie had had their personal lives displayed for the town to see, in more ways than one. They had both fought to keep the lives they wanted separate from the lives the town expected them to have. 

Julie had been expected to settle down with QB1, pop out a few kids and pretty much turn into her mom. It was a life she dreaded, a life she fled from the second she was able to. Somehow though, she had found herself in the process of becoming her mom. It was a different town, different people, but the same go nowhere way of life and she wasn’t cut out for it. 

Matt, to his credit, was understanding and sweet. As if she expecting anything different from him. Julie lay back down on the turf of Herrmann field and stared up at the stars. The universe was so big and bright from Dillon. It held so many possibilities, but in Dillon the world felt suffocatingly small. She had run as fast and as far as she could when she was able to and still she found herself back there. 

Nowhere for her to go, she came back to the one place that felt like home. Perhaps it wasn’t the place itself that felt like home, maybe it was the people. Her mom and her dad and Grace, but the final nail in her Dillon bound coffin had been Tim Riggins. 

The Seahawks golden boy, the man that on the field, was unstoppable. He wasn’t any of that to her, though. To her he was her friend, the only person she cared to talk to most days, though she hadn’t talked to him in nearly a year. He was still the silent, angry brooding kid that had saved her from herself at a party, protected her from a tornado and saved her from her father’s anger more than once. 

Tim had been expected to go nowhere and when it turned out the town was wrong about him, they turned around and said, “I knew it! I knew he would make something of himself.” Julie had been disgusted with the whole damn town. She had been one of the few that knew Tim could make a real life for himself, if he stopped listening to the talk of the town. The problem was, not listening to the town criers was harder than it ought to have been. All his life Tim had been shown two paths, one path was always kept out of reach, blocked by doubt and self worth issues. The other, wide and open and all too willing to take Tim down.

She supposed she could thank Lyla for showing Tim the path, for pushing him to go to college. Julie and Lyla may not have ever seen eye to eye on anything and in general, Julie found the taste of Lyla’s name on her tongue to be bitter, but still she could appreciate her for the faith she had shown Tim… Some of the time. 

Lyla’s faith in Tim came and went like Tim’s sobriety. There would be long periods in which she believed he could accomplish anything and she would encourage him to reach his goal. But like any alcoholic, she fell off the wagon at the first sign of trouble and threw Tim to the wolves. Ready to believe the worst in him. She never wasted time in telling him how much of a screw up he was, when he’d done something wrong. She always felt the need to remind him that he wasn’t good enough for her and that she was lowering herself to his level because she loved him. For whatever reason Julie never bothered to figure out. Lyla’s version of love was as hypocritical as her faith. Julie had watched the relationship between Tim and Lyla from a far, never getting mixed up in it because she knew she would have a hard time keeping her mouth shut. Instead she went on with her life and let him live his. 

When he had gone to college Lyla had gone too. They had started out at the same college but somewhere between second and third year Lyla had transferred to Vanderbilt and pretty much vanished from the radar. Julie had been ok with that, she pretended to like Lyla for Tim’s sake, but there was no denying she was happy when Lyla left. She wasn’t good for Tim.

Tim and Julie talked once a week every week for four years, every week of his college career, it didn’t matter what time it was, she heard from him. She never missed his call. Often times, his was the only voice that could put a smile on her face. 

He was in San Antonio playing college ball and achieving a dream no one but she believed he could, and she was in chicago, taking classes to become an english teacher. Engaged to Matt and content with life. Somehow, they still made time for each other. Matt often joined the conversations, Tim and Matt were very good friends after all. 

Julie knew the second Tim met Lana, he never missed a call, but she could tell by his voice. It took her a few months to get it out of him, he wasn’t one for talking about feelings. Anyone that knew Tim Riggins, knew that. He didn’t even talk to Matt about it. Julie had been the first person he’d confided in about Lana and soon, he was telling her everything. All their adventures, the good and the bad, Julie heard it all. She’d even gone with him ring shopping when he’d decided to pop the question. 

Tim had become the beacon of light in her life, when all others dulled. When she was having problems with Matt or her parents, it was Tim she called. He was her shoulder, her sounding board, if she needed someone, he was her person. 

His accident was the first time she’d ever really lost contact with him. He’d miss a call here and there, she’d explain it away. He was recovering from an injury, he was coming to terms with his life changing, eventually, the calls just stopped. No matter how much she tried, he was lost to her. Though she wasn’t the only one he was lost to. News of his divorce, of his fall into the bottle had reached her, of course they had. He was still well known, the tabloids and rag mags reported it all. His fall from grace, like everyone in Dillon all those years ago had expected, were on display for the whole world to see. It wasn’t just a tiny town in the middle of west Texas anymore, it was the world. Leave it to Tim to go big. 

Seeing him again tonight, hearing his voice after so many years of missing her best friend was like a dream come true. As he walked away, she made up her mind. She was staying in Dillon, at least a little bit. She had a friend that needed her and she wasn’t going to abandon him. 

Sighing, Julie sat up from the turf of Herrmann field. She wasn’t happy to be back, but she had Tim and that was exactly what she needed. She hoped that she could be what he needed too.


	3. Unexpectedly Needed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been OVER a year since I posted chapter two on this story. Chapter two was supposed to be it. The End. Exactly one week ago, this story decided it had more to say. It will be 11 chapters and an epilogue. I have it almost completely written actually. It should be over 30k words when done. I really hope you all enjoy the story. I know this isnt a big fandom, but I know people read this, so without further ado, I give you the continuation.

Chapter 3 - Unexpectedly Needed

The air was cool and the night was dark. The stars shown brightly in the in sky over West Texas. Dillon was a small enough town that the lights of the cities surrounding it didn’t touch the night sky. You could see for miles and count every star. 

Tim sat in his backyard, looking out over his 25 acres, a can of coke sitting on the side table. He wasn’t as interested in being social anymore. There were times when the house in Puget Sound would have hundreds of people milling around but in Dillon, on the large property that he now owned, there was no one but him. He liked it that way. He had learned to like his solitude. He had learned to like being on his own. That didn’t mean he didn’t miss the conversation of adults, but he was getting used to that too. He did have one person that he talked to, but she had always been there, so he wasn’t sure that really counted. She was part of his solitude. She was the only person he had ever let in when he was wanting to be alone. With her, he wasn’t alone but he was comfortable and safe. He wasn’t judged. He’d found that words didn’t need to be spoken with Julie. So even while she was there with him, he was still free to be alone. 

He didn’t go out of his way to look for that connection to people anymore. He had his one connection and he was good with that. People left him. People hurt him. They asked for money or they reminded him of a life he used to have. Worse, they reminded of the life he thought he’d left behind. It was hard not to be reminded of the life he had lived when he was still a teen. He had been so lost Drunk most of the time and thinking about getting drunk when he wasn’t. His life had been a mess. It was strange, but, even though Julie had been there to witness his destructive behavior in high school, she didn’t remind him of that life. Julie had always reminded him of hope. She’d always been that bright star guiding him on, even when she wasn’t around. The truth was, leaving Dillon had been the best thing he could have ever done. It had gotten him sober.

He still wasn’t sure, honestly, why he cared about his sobriety. No one else did. His ex was gone; she wanted nothing to do with him and honestly, Tim couldn’t blame her. He used to think she was the best part of his life, that he was the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet because Lana was his. She’d picked him. He had been a fool. The minute the times got tough, the second his career was done, Lana started to pull away. She wasn’t there for him. She didn’t care to help him. Tim had had to figure it out all on his own. He had. Somehow, Tim had found the strength.

Now he sat in his empty backyard, back in Dillon, a place he honestly never expected to come back to, his one year chip flipping through his fingers, reminding him why it was coke and not a beer that sat beside him. When he’d first come back to Dillon, after the divorce and after he’d pulled himself out of the bottle, he hadn’t been sure it was the right move. He could have come back to his old life and fallen back into old habits, but he hadn’t. He’d had a reason not to. 

Tim pulled out his wallet from his back pocket and slid the coin back into its designated spot. There was a ring, the perfect size of the coin, stretched out in the front sleeve where a normal debit card would go. Behind the coin, a picture rested, face down to protect the image from the rubbing of the coin.Tim pulled it out. He didn’t need to look at it, he knew what the picture was. He had every detail of the picture memorized but still he looked down at it, a smile spreading across his lips as he remember the moment. It was a simple picture, just him and Jules after he had signed with the Seahawks. They were at a party to celebrate and someone had snapped the picture just as she’d wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him for dear life. She’d told him she was proud of him, That she knew he had it in him, that He could achieve anything if he put his mind to it. He could almost feel the way her arms had felt around his neck. he could remember the sound of pure pride in her voice as if it had happened yesterday and not years ago. It was a memory Tim held close to him. He had never had anyone really be proud of him until that moment. He’d never known what it felt like to have someone believe in him, but Julie did. She always had. 

Julie Taylor had been his voice of reason since their friendship had taken off in his senior year. She had always been the one he thought about when he was making a choice. WWJD, What Would Julie Do? It had been a thought in the back of his head for years but it had been this picture that reminded him of her faith in him. He had let their friendship die out of shame and stupidity. He missed calls from her on accident and purposefully didn’t return them. Eventually he deliberately started to avoid her, because he knew she would be ashamed of him and he couldn’t stand to hear that in her voice. She, of all people, meant something more to him than a simple friend. He couldn’t take knowing that he had let her down. That picture had been his reason for leaving Seattle and getting clean again. That picture he took with him everywhere to remind him that he truly had lost everything that was important to him. He'd lost his career, his wife, and Julie. 

He was getting his life back and he had Julie back too; he didn’t care about his wife. Lana was gone and he was okay with that. He was working with the Panthers, getting the kids up to snuff,and making the team a team again. Coach Taylor was doing a great job of keeping everyone in line and Tim helped. He realized sometime between the start of the school year and mid-October that he really did like what he was doing. The kids weren’t so bad. They didn’t mouth off to him as much as he was expecting. They actually showed him respect- Which wasn’t something Tim was really used to having. He should be. He had played pro, people respected him for that, but it just wasn’t something he was used to. He almost wasn’t sure he deserved it. Actually, he was pretty sure it was misplaced, but he liked it anyway. But the thing that made him sure he was happy to be back, was the woman with the long blonde hair and the bright brown eyes, whose shining smile filled his mind and made him smile even when he was having a bad day. 

His year back at Dillon was flying by in a blur of blue and gold. Scrimmages and suicides and plays plagued his dreams, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to change it. He had a purpose and a life he was starting to accept. It hadn’t been the one he wanted, and he had to admit the house he had was lonely, but he was starting to be okay with that. He saw his brother and his nephews as often as he could, but his own home was very solitary and quiet. 

He lifted his can of coke and drained the last of it before standing to go back inside. He stopped suddenly when he heard the gate to his yard creak open. He wasn’t used to visitors so he was instantly on his guard. Tim moved slowly around the yard, picking up a piece of wood on the side of the house to use against the attacker, but the light of his front room lit the profile of would be intruder and he relaxed.

“Jesus, Jules,” Tim said setting the board down. “You scared me,” It wasn’t just anyone that Tim would admit that to. Julie turned to look at him and Tim paused. He could see something in her eyes. He knew that look. He knew that look better than anyone. She wasn’t sober. “Jules?” he asked looking down his driveway. He was glad her car wasn’t there. He hadn’t heard wheels crunching on the gravel drive up to his gate, so he wasn’t shocked that there was no care, but he was still thankful that in her drunken state she was smart enough not to drive. It was more than he could say for himself.

“I took a cab,” she said following his gaze. He’d figured as much. He 

“What are you doing here?” He wasn’t the best person in the world to be around when people were unstable and it wasn’t easy for him to be around someone that was in her current state. 

“Um…” she said taking a step toward him. The heel on the too high for her pump landed wrong on the deck of his front porch and she toppled over. Tim rushed in to keep her from falling completely. He wasn’t used to seeing Julie like this. In fact, he’s only ever seen her drunk once. He remembered that day as though it were yesterday as well. She was 16, at a party for the football team and trashed out of her mind. Matt had been spotted with another girl and Julie’s response had been to get drunk and chat up a senior that looked to be interested in one thing, and only one thing. Tim had not sat idly by and let that happen. Instead he had dragged Julie out of the party and taken her home. Drunkenly she’d tried to kiss him, which hadn’t bothered Tim in the slightest, but what had bothered him was her dad hearing them and assuming the worst of him. That day had changed a lot of things with them. It had broken something Tim hadn’t realized existed in the first place - his friendship with Julie and the Taylors’ in general- but that had also been fixed rather quickly once Julie told the truth. Of all the places he could have ever imagined he and Julie ended up, this was never one of them. 

“Let’s get you inside, what do you say?” he asked. He pulled one of her arms over his shoulder and started to carry her into his house. He had a flash of a memory buried in the recesses of his mind that had him, much much younger, doing damn near the same thing with the girl in his arms. It was the first and last time he had ever seen her drunk. It had been that instance that set their relationship, however rocky it had really started out to be, in motion. He hadn’t waited for her to reply, he simply dragged her over the threshold of his front door as if she weighed nothing. She was there for a reason, even if he didn’t know what it was. Drunk or not, she would always be welcomed in his home. 

He set her on the couch and took a seat on the coffee table in front of her. “What’s wrong Jules?” he asked lifting her foot so that he could remove the dangerous shoes she’d nearly killed herself with already. She was dressed in a halter top and shorter skirt than he had ever seen on her. Her outfit wouldn’t have looked out of place at The Landing Strip. He didn’t like seeing her like this. She had always been a pillar to him- His strength without her even knowing it. The outfit she wore and her behavior didn’t fit her, not even when she was younger and had been rebelling. It was more reminiscent of Tyra but even Tyra had grown out of it relatively quick.

Julie scoffed and pulled her foot from his hand. “Nothing’s the matter, why would something be the matter?” she said crossing her arms over her chest and leveling a glare at Tim. He was not used to being on the receiving end of her anger. He knew it wasn’t directed at him specifically, but it hurt, regardless. 

“I don’t know, Jules,” he snapped at her, his hurt showing in his words, “maybe because you showed up at my home, looking like you just got off work at The Landing Strip and smelling like a distillery.” He left out the part about her nearly breaking her neck though. He was worried about her. She wasn’t someone that did this. Jules was smart and grounded. She thought things out and enjoyed life as it was. She didn’t need to imbibe in mind altering substances. “This isn’t you,” he told her leaning forward and looking at her.

“What would you know about it?” she snapped, making him bristle. Julie Taylor didn’t talk to anyone like this. She’d been short with Tim when he was being a dick about something. She’d kicked him into place more than once, but this was just cruel. She wasn’t cruel. 

“Nothing, Julie,” Tim said standing up from his spot on the coffee table. “I wouldn’t know a damn thing,” He was only a recovering alcoholic with a stunning ability to push the people he cared about away. What could he possibly know?

“How about some coffee?” he asked moving into the kitchen, leaving her on the couch. She needed to sober up or sleep it off. Tim preferred the idea of her sobering up. He didn’t want her to fall asleep if she was drunk as he had a feeling she was. She needed to get something in her system. 

He busied himself with making the coffee, racking his brain for what could possibly have cause Julie Taylor of all people to go on a bender, but it was useless. He also didn’t know her anymore. He’d ruined that friendship along with everything else he’d ruined in his life after his accident. He didn’t know what had happened in the two years he’d lost himself and consequently lost Jules too. He had no idea what she’d gone through or what had happened with Matt. There had been more to the story, he knew there had been. He’d left it alone though because he knew she would talk about it when she wanted, if she wanted. 

The pot burbled as he flicked it on to brew and he went back out to his livingroom. He wasn’t shocked to see that Julie hadn’t moved at all from the spot where he had put her down. One shoe was still on her foot and he sighed. He was out of his element with this, but if one person in this entire world deserved his care and attention in a time of need like this, it was the beautiful blonde on his couch. 

“Jules,” he said softly, taking the seat he had previously vacated. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees as he took in the woman before him. “You know you know you can talk to me, right?” he said quietly. She had been his sounding board for years, he wanted to be that for her. 

“I’m sorry,” she sniffled. The sound of her tears tore at the heart Tim was sure he’d lost a few years ago. “I shouldn’t be here.” Tim watched her try and sit up but she slumped against the soft material of the couch after a few tries, her tears flowing freely now. Tim slid off the coffee table and onto the couch, pulling her into him. He had no idea what was going on, but she needed him and that was all that mattered to him.


	4. Unexpectedly Wanted

Ch4- Unexpectedly Wanted

Julie was tired. She spent most of her days buried under reports on books that she wasn’t even sure she cared about, let alone that her students cared about. The writing from her students was halfhearted at best; at worst, it was juvenile and sloppily put together in the hopes of at least getting a grade. It gave her a migraine. 

Most days, like this one, she sat at her desk at work, nursing a cup of stone cold coffee and a headache, silently wondering why she had ever come back to Dillion while she tried in vain to read the tripe that her students spewed on the pages. She knew the answer, but she still questioned her sanity when days like today had happened. Her day was going great, she managed to get to work on time, for once, without spilling her organic non-fat dairy and soy free latte all over herself (for the first time since she started working there). The second she had walked into her classroom though, the world had decided to change. Her phone buzzed violently in her purse and in her haste to get to it, her beloved cup of coffee and been set down on her desk wrong and had spilled all over the papers she was supposed to be handing back that very morning. Julie was a disaster and she’d ended up missing the call. 

Her phone blinked at her from the corner of her desk where she had abandoned it at nine that morning and refused to pick the evil thing up even once the rest of the day. She didn’t blame the stupid inanimate object, but the call had been from Matt and he had left her a voice mail. The little blue light on her phone leered at her. Taunted her. Challenged her. It had taken her all her strength not the chuck the thing, like a football, across the room and watch it break into a thousand tiny pieces. The crash and smash would be such a satisfying sound, but she had denied herself that joy, knowing that she needed to listen to the voice mail. 

There was only one person in the world that could have convinced her to go back to Dillion. Only one person that could have convinced her to stay in Dillion. He had no idea he had that power, but there she was, sitting at her desk in her classroom at East Dillion High, she hadn’t been able to get a job at West Dillion, where Tim was. They hadn’t had a spot open for english, but East Dillion had jumped at the chance to have her as a teacher. Julie had taken the job without thought because she had made up her mind that night on the field to stay. Her friend needed her and she was making it a point to fix him as much as he needed to be fixed. 

Tim Riggins was not a charity case, he never had been, but he needed her help. He had lost his way after his injury and divorce. He needed a clear path to walk. Without one, she was worried he would end up right where everyone in the entire town had believed he would be back when he was 17. She couldn’t let that happen. Tim worked to hard to let everything go. He was a defeatist, she knew he was, but she was not going to let him take the path that everyone else had expected. 

She knew Tim was lost at the moment. The whole damn town did. He wasn’t as lost as he had been a few years ago, but the night on the field told her that he was still lost. The truth was, Julie was just as lost, if not more so. She didn’t know what she was doing there, in Dillion or in life. The only thing she knew was that Tim needed her and maybe a small (not really that small) part of her needed him too. 

She sat up straighter in her chair and put the pen that had been clutched in her hand down. She squared her shoulders, thinking about what Tim would tell her to do in this situation, with her phone and the stupid blue light. He would tell her to do whatever she damn well wanted, but he would also ask her if not knowing what the voicemail said was worth wondering. He knew her so much better than anyone else. He knew that it would drive her nuts, the not knowing. She reached for her phone, Tim’s little smile flashing behind her eyes, he would be proud of her for plucking up the courage to listen to the message. She didn’t want to know what Matt had to say, but she did need to know. They hadn’t left on the best of terms. No matter what she had told Tim, Matt’s and her breakup had not been an easy one. 

Sighing, she slid her finger across the icon of the voice mail on the screen and heard more than saw it click open. She put the phone up to ear and closed her eyes as his voice floated through the speaker. She hadn’t heard from him since she had back up her car and left Chicago. She never expected to hear from him again, but his voice was like a time capsule to her life. She could see their life together so clearly, just because of his voice. 

Julie, it’s Matt (as if she didn’t already know that). I was cleaning out the apartment and came across some of your old things. I wanted to send them to you but I didn’t know where you were living anymore and I didn’t want to just send it on to your parents in case… I don’t know in case they hate me or you haven’t told them or… 

There was a heavy sigh and it made Julie’s heart clench. She missed Matt. She tried so hard to tell herself that she didn’t, that they had ended for a good reason, but it didn’t change the fact that she did miss him. He had hurt her worse than she had ever been hurt but he was the only person she had ever loved. She didn’t know what to do without him. 

Call me, Jules. Please? I lo… Just call me. 

The line clicked closed and Julie dropped the phone with a clatter on the desk. She was really glad she hadn’t listened to that during school hours. She wouldn’t have been able to make it throught the day. She hated Matt, so much, but she loved him and missed him more. 

Sighing, she scooped up all the papers she needed to grade, stuffed it all into the backpack she used, grabbed her purse and headed for the door as she punched the callback button on the phone. He had said to call him, but even if he hadn’t, she needed to. She needed to tell him where to send her stuff. She reached her car as the line picked up and she couldn’t help but smile in spite of herself. She had worried that he would send her to voice mail, but the fact that he’d answered made her heart leap. 

“Hello?” The voice was soft and sweet, not Matt’s. Julie froze, her hand out stretched to open the door of her car. “Hello?” The voice asked again. 

“Umm, hi. I was looking for Matt?” Julie said unsure what else to say. She knew she didn’t have the wrong number, but she had no idea why this girl was answering his phone. The leaping feeling turned into a sinking feeling and she felt dizzy. Her stomach twisted tightly and she felt sick. She wasn’t sure she could talk, the taste of bile burnt the back of her throat. 

“Oh!” she said excitedly. “Matty, it’s for you.”

Julie rolled her eyes, an exasperated sigh escaping her lips, it was all she could do to keep from throwing up. Of course it was for him, she had called his phone after all. 

“Who is it Babe?” Julie heard Matt ask, his words plunging the knife she’d thought had been removed from her heart right back in and deeper. The taste of bile was stronger than ever. She was frozen in her spot as she heard the girl answer him in her sweet tone. “I don’t know sweetie but she’s asking for you.” She heard the scuffle of the phone being exchanged hands and let the phone slip from her shoulder and land hard on the ground. The screen cracked and went dead but she could hear Matt talking through the speaker. She didn’t care. She simply got in her car, drove over the phone, and left the parking lot. She couldn’t do it anymore. He’d moved on. They’d been together since she was 15 more or less but that hadn’t mattered to him. He had moved on, not even a few months after everything with them had gone bad.

Her tires screeched on the asphalt as she peeled away from the side street and gunned it down the main drag in her tiny little hybrid. Julie wasn’t a rash person, she was thoughtful, she weighed options, planned things. She made informed choices and stayed on the paths she picked, but she was so tired of being the butt of Matt’s jokes. She was so tired of being on the receiving end of his carelessness. All it did was hurt her. She knew that he had never really meant to hurt her, he hadn’t really thought things through and he’d gotten himself into a few things he hadn’t been able to get out of. That was the problem with Matt though, he didn’t think and it just ended up hurting her. 

The start of her evening was a blur of pre-gaming (as Tim had always called it) at home, by herself. She wasn’t one that drank often, so she didn’t have much in her house, so when she finished the last of her bottle of wine, she changed out of her school clothing dressing in a bright yellow halter top that didn’t match the season or the weather and a white pleather mini skirt paired with a pair of three inch hooker heels (Tyra’s words). She didn’t care that she looked like a two bit hooker looking to pick up some skeezy biker in the back alley of The Landing Strip (maybe that was what she needed). She walked out of her little apartment and the few blocks to the bar, it wasn’t like she needed to drive, she knew her way around this town with her eyes closed. Besides, she could get anywhere in under 20 minutes. Yeah, Dillon was that small. At least, compared to Chicago it was. 

The rest of her night, after entering the bar had consisted of loud country music, dancing, drinking and some guy, who she didn’t know trying to feel her up. Buddy Garrity of all people had come to her rescue. Then again, considering it was his bar, she shouldn’t have been all that shocked. 

“Where to, Miss?” The driver of the cab Buddy had poured her into asked. Julie could have sworn she had given him her address, so when he pulled up outside of the Tim’s, Julie was confused. “This is where I leave you, Miss. My cab can’t handle the gravel road.” This didn’t shock Julie. She was sure the cab was older than she was. 

“How much do I owe you?” she asked fumbling through the small beaded bag she had on her, trying to find her money while opening the door of the cab at the same time. Her fingers were clumsy and her mind slow and fogged over. She didn’t even understand what she was doing. 

“The ride’s free for you, Mr. Garrity paid.” he said. “Do you need help getting out?” 

Julie slid gracelessly out of the cab and landed on her ass in the gravel of Tim’s long driveway. She wasn’t sure how she was going to get down to his actual house in the state she was in, but she really had no choice. She couldn’t walk very well, but she’d just have to try and focus. “‘m fine,” she said, her words slurred as she clung to the door in the hopes that it would help her up. It took her a few tries but she managed to stand under her own volition. She snapped the door of the cab shut. Within seconds the cab was gone and Julie was all alone… again. 

How she got to the porch of Tim house, Julie would never know, but by the grace of whatever deity deemed her worthy, she managed it and she hadn’t hurt herself in the process. Well not too much. Not until she tried to actually walk towards Tim. She could make a fool out of herself in front of anyone in the world and not give two shits, but in front of Tim she just felt stupid. He didn’t say anything about it, not until she snapped at him. She wasn’t sure what she was doing there, so how could she answer his question? 

“Umm…” she had started lamely trying to come up with a reason to be standing on his porch, drunk, but nothing came. She took a step, just to do something, because when she was searching for words or a lie, she fidgeted. Unfortunately her body couldn’t adjust for her motions as fast as normal and her foot had vanished from under her. She found herself pressed face first into Tim’s firm chest instead of standing like she had been. 

“Let’s get you inside, what do you say?” She felt his words more that heard them. They rumbled softly in his chest. Before she could say anything or do anything to get away from him, he’d wrapped one of her arms around his neck and pulled her into his house. She’d never actually been to his house before, even if she had known exactly where it was. The whole bloody town knew where Panthers #33 lived. 

When she’d gotten out of the cab, the day had been vanishing. The sun was slipping away for a nightcap and the night was getting ready for its shift. The sky was being painted pink and orange. As Tim pulled her over the threshold of his house, she realized that the moon shone high in the sky and all the stars twinkled for her. It had taken her a lot longer to get down to his house than she had realized. 

She landed softly on a comfortable and plush couch, her eyes locking onto Tim’s. He sat in front of her, a worried expression on his face. She had a brief moment of wonder as to why he looked worried when Tim didn’t worry about anything, but his words, the sound of his voice and the look on his face all coupled together told her it was her he was worried about. “What’s wrong Jules?” he asked, taking the shoes she had stupidly worn, off. 

“Nothing’s the matter, why would something be the matter?” she scoffed at him. She pulled her foot from his hand, his touch was making her feel strange, and she crossed her arms over her chest. She was defensive. She didn’t want to tell Tim what had happened today to make her behave like this. She was pathetic for feeling the way she had. Matt and her were over. Matt had broken her heart. She had lied to Tim… Well, not lied to him, but she hadn’t told him the truth. It hadn’t been her specifically that called it off. She had been the one to end it. Her reasons had been true, too. She had suddenly found herself being just like her mom and Matt was just like her dad. Thing was, she didn’t want to marry her dad. She hadn’t even wanted to marry Matt. No matter how much she loved him, the idea of marrying him at felt like a slow death. Like all the air was slowly being removed from her lungs. 

“I don’t know, Jules,” he snapped, his eyes going hard. She’d seen that look in his eyes when Lyla or Billy, sometimes even Tyra, said something that hurt him, but it had never been directed at her. Knowing that she hurt him caused her a pang of guilt, which made her sad. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him. “maybe because you showed up at my home, looking like you just got off work at The Landing Strip and smelling like a distillery.” 

Julie narrowed her eyes on him. “What would you know about it!” she snapped. Her angry got the better of her on that one. He’d basically just told her she looked like a stripper and smelled like a drunk. She knew he was right, she did, but hearing him say it made her feel awful. Tim had never judged her but his words hurt. They sounded like judgement. She didn’t need judgement. She needed her friend. 

“Nothing, Jules,” he said sharply. “I wouldn’t know a damn thing,” his voice was harsh and angry as he stood up from the coffee table. Julie felt even worse. She’d made the one person in the world she had on her side, mad. She didn’t know what to do or how to fix that. She couldn’t even convince herself to move, not that it was advisable anyway. She’d probably, trip, fall and break something. “How about some coffee?” he asked walking away from her. She didn’t say anything. He was already gone, there was no point. 

Tim was gone for a long time. Or, at least, it felt like a long time. Julie hadn’t moved. She couldn’t. She couldn’t think. Her mind was fuzzy and blank. The only thing going through her head had been the girls voice. The way she had called him Matty. No one called him Matty anymore. He wasn’t five. She had no right to be angry or hurt, but she was. 

This was what you wanted. She reminded herself. You wanted to end things with Matt. You wanted to be free of the life you had accidently made for yourself. You. Wanted. This. Her traitorous mind repeated over and over. She had wanted this. Matt had gotten a new job and they were supposed to move. Just pick up and leave. Julie didn’t want to start over. At least, not with Matt. She didn’t want a new town and new friends with a new job. She didn’t want a new life. Not the new one Matt was giving her. She had wanted this. 

“Jules.” The voice broke her from her thoughts and she looked at Tim. He was hunched in front of him, a look of worry and concern on his face. “You know you can talk to me, right?” 

Julie blinked softly, his words registering. She did know that she could talk to him. She had always known she could talk to him, but this was Tim Riggins, Panthers #33. She wasn’t sure she could talk to him about her issues with Seven, as Riggins always called him. Matt was his friend. His QB1. She could hardly talk to him about everything that she felt and didn’t feel about Matt. “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to blink the tears away. She could feel the prickle of them starting in her nose and she sniffed. “I should go…” she said trying to pull herself out of his couch. She couldn’t get herself up and she slumped against the cushions, cursing herself for getting herself into this mess. She was weak and pathetic and she was making a fool in front of Tim. She couldn’t even stop the tears anymore if she wanted to. 

The couch dipped and she found herself pressed tightly against Tim’s chest, his arm once again around her. The comfort she felt in his embrace opened the floodgates on her tears and she cried. For the first time since she’d left Matt, Julie cried and Tim held her. He didn’t ask questions, he didn’t move or act as though she was imposing on him or being a nuisance. He held her and comforted her till her tears had dried. 

Her sobs turned into sniffles again, her body shaking softly with the aftershocks of the emotional turmoil. She hadn’t done that, even on her own. She hadn’t cried herself to sleep or shed even one single tear over this, but his phone call, the voicemail and the unknown woman on the other end had been enough to break Julie’s calm demeanor. 

She pulled back to look at Tim. She could feel her alcohol induced stupor starting to wain. “I should…” she wiped her eyes taking the last vestiges of tears away from her skin. Tim’s shirt was covered in tears, she could see the wet spots on the soft gray material and she ran her hand over the spots. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.   
Tim grabbed her hand, stopping her motions. “You have nothing to apologize for, Jules.” he said firmly. 

She looked up at him, the firmness in his voice and the fierceness of the look on his face stopped her from arguing. She knew she should apologize but it was clear by the look on his face that her words would fall on deaf ears. “Can you call me a cab? I don’t have a phone anymore.” she said realizing she was practically stranded at his house. She wasn’t, she knew she wasn’t, but she felt like she was. 

“How about that coffee?” Tim said with a smile. “It should be done by now. I could carry you into the kitchen, if you can’t walk. There’s no shame in being carried.” his lips twitched but the smile never came, they remained as plump and pouty as ever. 

“I actually may need to take you up on that.” She said with a wry smile. He changed the subject and she figured she might as well let him. He wasn’t interested in her leaving and considering she had no ability to leave on her own, arguing with him was pointless. 

Tim stood from the couch suddenly and scooped Julie up with him, making her scream softly. Her hands wrapped around his neck and she kicked off the other shoe. It hit the floor, hard but Tim didn’t pay attention. He simply carried her into the kitchen and set her down on a stool. 

Julie swayed slightly but reached for the counter. Her stupor was waning but not fast enough to be steady on a stool. Her head was spinning and the room was following suit. She looked up to say something to Tim and the next thing she knew she was slipping sideways and reaching for him. Her hand grabbed his arm, a little yelp escaping her lips as she fell from the stool. 

“Julie!” She heard his voice, but it didn’t sound worried, not really. It was more shocked than anything. The next second she landed hard on the ground, her head narrowly missing the corner of a cabinet. She had barely enough time to thank the gods for that when a hard, heavy body landed on top of her. 

She exhaled heavily, an oof bursting from her lips as Tim came down on top of her. She looked up at him, a laugh bubbling from her. She couldn’t help it. The fact that she’d taken Tim Riggins down was comical to her. “If I’d known it was so easy to take you down, I would have done it years ago.” she said once the giggles had subsided. She looked up at him to say something but stopped because the look on his face was completely unreadable. She always knew what he was thinking but in that moment, she had no idea what could possibly be going through his head. 

She’d spend hours on the phone with him and recently they’d spent days and days together, going out to dinner, talking and just being each others friend. He’d been over to her place a few times when Julie wasn’t feeling social, but they’d never been to his house. She wasn’t even sure why. 

“What?” she asked, suddenly feeling more breathless than she had ever felt. She doubted that Tim’s added wait was the cause of it either, because if it was, she would have felt it before now. 

 

******  
Tim should have known better that to place someone in Julie’s condition on something that had such a small seat and a long drop. He wrapped a hand around her arm to stop her from falling, but he was too late. In his haste to catch her, he overbalanced and her momentum took him down with her. Tim crashed to the ground, landing hard on top of her, his legs and hers tangled up in each other. 

He tried to extricate himself from the heap they had created but he was more tangled than he realized and Julie was too busy laughing to help. Her laughter filled the kitchen and echoed off the walls. It was a sound he hadn’t heard in his house in a long time and he loved it. He loved her laugh. He’d heard it plenty, but this was the first time she’d been over at his house. It was a much better sound than her crying. He hated seeing her cry. A girl like Julie Taylor should never have a reason to cry. Not sad tears anyway. 

He knew she had said something, but he hadn’t caught it. He was too busy realizing something. He was too busy finally understanding why Julie had always meant so much to him. Why he had always cared about keeping his friendship with her in tact more than keep his marriage going. He was in love with this girl. He was starting to think he had been for a long time. She’d always come first, no matter what. 

“Nothing,” Tim said, shaking himself out of his realization. It was like the whole damn world had suddenly landed square on his shoulders and he didn’t know what to do with all of this. “Sorry,” he said trying to get up. “I should have known better.” He really should have, but he wasn’t talking about putting her on the stool. He should have known better than to fall for her. Tim moved to get up just as Julie shifted and she hit his arm, making the arm he had extended buckle, sending him crashing back down to her. He caught himself just inches from her face. 

“Tim,” Her voice was soft and slightly labored. He heard a little hitch in Julie’s breath and figured it was due to the fact that he was practically laying on top of her but when her lips connected with his, he wasn’t so sure that was why she sounded breathless. Tim relaxed into her, his eyes closing softly at her kiss. He hadn’t really kissed anyone since his divorce. Tim’s party ways had vanished when he was signed. He was too famous to take that chance anymore so when he drank, he drank by himself in the apartment he had bought after Lana had kicked him out. 

He moved to deepen the kiss, but stopped. The taste of the tequila flooded his senses and he pulled back rather sharper than he had meant to but the flavor shocked him. It wasn’t a taste he had had in a long time and it wasn’t one he wanted now. He was so shocked by the taste of the alcohol that he hadn’t thought about how his actions would be seen by her. He hadn’t thought about anything other than getting away from the alcohol. He couldn’t be around it. It wasn’t safe for him. He couldn’t. 

“Sorry,” she said softly, pushing him off her. Tim let her up and sat up with her, trying hard not to lick his lips and take the flavor of the drink with him. He watched her pull herself up but he made no effort to get up himself. “I think I’ll pass on the coffee, Tim,.” she said sniffing again. “Can you just call me a cab? I don’t have my phone on me.” she wiped her eyes and tried to stand up straighter. “Can you point me in the direction of the bathroom?” He knew he should say something, but he couldn’t find the words. He was trying so hard to keep his wits about him and not dive back into the kiss with her. He wanted to kiss her. God he did. He’d never wanted anything so bad in his life. Not even a drink could compare to how bad he wanted to kiss her, but he simply stayed quiet and still while she swayed and sniffled and clung to the counter. 

“Down the hall, to the right, third door on the left,” Tim said looking up at her. He was still sitting on the floor completely lost. He would have never pulled away from that kiss if she hadn’t been drinking. Honestly, he would have taken that kiss to a level he was sure would have ruined their friendship. That was an idea that terrified him more than falling back into a bottle. He couldn’t lose this girl. He would take her in any capacity she was willing to give him. She was his bright star in the dead of night, lighting his path. She was his conscience and his voice of reason when he was feeling stupid. He could not lose her. 

He watched her stumble out of his kitchen but didn’t try to help her. He knew her well enough to know that she didn’t want his help at that moment, beyond that, touching her was a bad idea. He wasn’t sure he would be able to stop himself from returning that kiss. Once she was gone, Tim got up and went to rinse his mouth out. Not because he didn’t like the taste of Julie, but it was masked by the alcohol and he needed that taste gone. He gulped down a glass of water and busied himself with making up the cups of coffee. Julie wanted him to call her a cab, but he wasn’t going to. He would take her home himself if that was what she wanted. 

*****

Julie followed his directions, stumbling and bumping into the wall as she went. She already couldn’t walk, but the tears that were blurring her vision made it worse. She couldn’t believe she had kissed him. Gods, she had to be the stupidest girl in the world. Had she not tried that once before? Had that not ended horrifically back then? Kissing Tim Riggins was not a good idea, Julie knew this. She knew it back then and she knew it now and apparently Tim did too. 

She reached the bathroom, finally and poured herself into it. It was brightly lit and well kept. It wasn’t large, only a half bath, just a toilet and a sink but it was still decorated nicely with browns and beiges. If she weren’t so upset, she would be impressed. As it was, looking at herself in the completely pristine mirror, she was a mess. Her makeup was smeared around her eyes from the crying which made her eyes puffy and swollen. Her nose was red and runny and her red lipstick was faded and smudged around edges where she had kissed Tim. 

“You’re a fool, Julie,” she said looking at herself in the mirror. “Kissing Tim? Have you lost your mind?” She could have sworn he had kissed her back, but with how fast he had pulled away she doubted that was a possibility. 

She grabbed a hand towel from the ring and turned the water on, letting it warm up so that she could at least remove some of the makeup from her face. She licked her lips, wetting them. She could taste Tim on them. She’d never known that flavor before. She wanted to know more though. She had when she was 15 and she still did. She had thought that desire was gone. She couldn’t remember ever feeling it beyond the one time. She’d been drunk then, too. Maybe she needed to be drunk to feel it? That was kind of a fucked up thought though. The idea that she needed to be under the influence to be attracted to Tim was sickening. She knew he was good looking. Anyone with eyes could see that. 

She closed her eyes, refusing to let her mind go down this path. She couldn’t. She splashed the hot water on her fast and took the towel to her face, scrubbing the last of the mascara streaks from her cheeks and under her eyes. She ran it across her lips, removing her lipstick before using the other half of the hand towel to dry her face off. She set it down and rummaged through the cabinet hoping to find something to make her feel less like a drunk. She was ashamed of herself for showing up at Tim’s house in the state she was in. She was drunk and he was a recovering alcoholic. She was the worst person in the world. She was sure of it. 

Julie pulled open the medicine cabinet and found a tiny bottle of mouthwash along with some other traveling supplies. She’d never been so happy in her life. She grabbed the tiny bottle of scope and took a swig, swishing it around in her mouth before spitting it out. She didn’t want to taste or smell like alcohol anymore and she wanted to be sober. More than anything she wanted to not be drunk. 

She sat on the toilet, her head in her hands, breathing deep and trying like hell to focus. She could feel the prickle of the headache stating in the back of her throbbing head. The drinks were burning off in her system, leaving her dehydrated and hungover. She was tired. Mentally and physically exhausted. She didn’t know how long she was in there for, but she knew that she should go and check on Tim, if for no other reason than to tell him she hadn’t passed out. Though at that moment, laying her head down on a pillow, closing her eyes and letting the weight of her heavy body sink into a soft bed did sound appealing When she was sure she could at least force herself to focus on walking right, she left the bathroom. Nothing was as sobering as a rejection and Tim had rejected her. Just like he had a decade ago. She walked back down the hall, this time only her arm out to keep her from falling. It was an improvement at least. When she got to the kitchen she stopped in the doorway, just watching Tim. He was leaning on the counter with his head in his hands, two cups of coffee next to him. She hated his body language in that moment. He looked weary and tired. Worn out or stressed out. She knew she had caused it, too. She hated herself for it. 

“Did you call me a cab?” Julie asked. Her voice wasn’t loud but she startled Tim enough to make him knock over a cup, sending hot coffee all over the counter and floor. “Sorry,” she said softly. She’d apologized to him so many times already but she just kept causing problems. 

“No,” he said ignoring the coffee. “I’m not going to call you a cab. You can stay here or, if you want, I can take you home, but I’m not going to call you a cab.” Tim moved away from the counter and to her, stopping in front of her. She held her breath. She had no idea what he was going to do. She’d already made such a fool of herself in front of him. “I had a cup of coffee for you,” he said with a rueful smile. “I’ll make you another. Maybe you can tell me what happened to make you go on a bender?” 

“Matt.” Julie did not want to talk about it, but the name left her lips before she could really stop them. “He called, told me to call him back and then some woman answered his phone.” It didn’t hurt as much when she was telling Tim, but that was probably the alcohol. 

“Something tells me there is more to this story than you told me on the field a few months ago,” he said crossing his arms. “Normally, I wouldn’t push it, but this,” he motioned to her current state. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes simply because she knew she was a mess. She looked like a hooker and smelled like a distillery. Tim was right. 

“Do you have some clothing I could borrow?” She didn’t like the way she was dressed, standing there in his kitchen. She felt exposed for one and for two, she knew it wasn’t her. She’d been slightly drunk when she picked out the outfit, which had originally been a halloween costume she and Tyra had had fun with a few years back. It had come with a blue wig. Thankfully she’d left that at home. “I could use a shower too,” she said softly. She wanted to wash it all away. She wasn’t sure it was completely safe, getting into a shower like this, but she would be careful. “I’ll tell you everything after?” She hoped he would be okay with that. 

“If you promise to drink the coffee, I’ll get you a shirt.” He pulled at her skirt a little and smirked. It was a smirk she had seen on his face so many times before but for some reason the effect it had on her then (the roll of her eyes) was vastly different from her reaction tonight. Tonight, that smirk made her knees weak, which she was trying desperately to blame on the alcohol. “I’m pretty sure they won’t be much longer than this, but you’ll look better in my jersey than this anyway.” 

Julie tried not to blush at his words, but they made her feel funny. “Alright,” she told him, rolling her eyes, because she had to at least keep up appearances. “I will drink the coffee, now where is the shower?”

Tim smiled brighter and reached for the cup of coffee that hadn’t been knocked over and handed it to her. She and Tim drank their coffee almost the same way, thankfully. She took a sip of the warm beverage, the heat flooding her system and soothing her throat, which had been dry and scratchy for a while. “Follow me,” he told her, grabbing her hand to lead her to the shower. She really should just ask him to take her home, but his offer for her to stay was too tempting. She wanted the company right now.


	5. The Truth

CH5- The Truth

“I was sitting in the living room of our apartment when I realized it wasn’t what I wanted.” she told him. 

Tim was sitting in the center of the couch while Julie lay across it, propped up on the arm of the couch. Her long blonde hair was pulled back in a wet ponytail. All her makeup had been washed away and she smelled like his soap. That was strangely intoxicating on its own. Her bare legs stretched over his lap, his hands resting on them while he listened to her talk. His thumb rubbed gently at the soft skin. He was right, she looked better in his jersey. He used to think the outfit she had shown up in was sexy, but honestly, on Jules, it just looked wrong. She didn’t need to wear something like that to catch a guy's attention. At least not in Tim’s opinion. Any guy Julie caught with that outfit wasn’t worthy of her. 

“He got a job at a different high school across the state, teaching art, which meant we needed to move.” She sighed. Her fingers traced the #33 on this seahawks jersey. He still couldn’t believe that had given him that number on the field. It had been a stroke of luck honestly. At San Antonio state, he had been the #02. He hadn’t expected to ever wear the number 33 again. “He was talking about the prospect and suddenly I realized I didn’t want to go. We had good jobs where we were. There was no point to moving.” she said, her voice sounding bitter. “But he said it was too late. He’d already accepted the job!” her hand clenched in anger and she looked up at Tim, her bright brown eyes dark with hurt and anger. “He didn’t even bother to ask me. He just did it. Like he assumed I would be okay or that he didn’t care if I said no.”

Tim’s hands rubbed up and down her leg, trying to sooth her. “I’m really sorry, Jules.” he said softly. He knew Seven could be slow and a little dense but that was just plain insensitive. It wasn’t really like Matt at all. Tim was shocked that he would do that. 

She shrugged, waving away his apology. “It’s alright. I told him I didn’t want to leave, I didn’t want to move across the state and start over and he said that was fine! Fine, Tim.” She looked up at him, her eyes hard. She wasn’t angry, she was hurt. “We were supposed to be getting married, but it was fine that I didn’t want to go with him. He said I could stay, but he was going.” she looked down at her hand and frowned. “He didn’t even care that I wasn’t going to be with him,” she said sadly. “So I gave him back the ring, packed up the car and left. I quit my job, which I realize it’s a contradiction to what I had told Matt, and left the state.” Julie sighed. “Somewhere between Missouri and Arkansas, I realized that I didn’t care about leaving my job, I just really didn’t want to be with Matt anymore.” 

Tim stayed quiet while she talked. He didn’t really know what to say. He had no real experience with this sort of thing. He’d been with Lyla in high school and part of college, but that had gone bad before he realized it and he found himself on his own. Truth be told, he found himself on his own with her a lot. Lyla didn’t stick around for difficult situations. They’d spent most of their relationship fighting, breaking up and making up. With Lana, it was different too. Their relationship had its ups and downs, but she at least had staying power. Well, until the going got real tough. Tim had never actually broken up with someone he cared about. Even Tyra had been the one to ditch him. Tyra was the only one he didn’t blame. He had been horrible to her. 

“Is that how you ended up back here?” he asked sitting up slightly to grab his coffee. He was exhausted. It was late, real late. He’d caught a glimpse of the clock when Jules had gone to the bathroom. He was glad it was the weekend. He would have been in trouble if they had to go to work the next day. She’d spend a long time in both the downstairs bathroom and the shower in his room. He had hovered, worried that she would hurt herself. She had been pretty drunk when she got to his house. He was pleased to see between the coffee and time, it was wearing off. 

“I guess?” she said with a shrug. “I hadn’t actually planned on coming back to Texas, but I found myself just driving home without thought. I called my mom to tell her I was passing through, I figured I’d stay a day and be on my way, but she said you were back, so,” she shrugged and Tim smiled. 

He liked that she had stayed. He wasn’t foolish enough to think it had been for him, he couldn’t get that lucky. His luck was used up. He had her as a friend. “But you ended up staying. You worked so hard to get out of this place, why stay?” In high school getting out of Dillion was all she talked about. She never wanted to come back. She hated this tiny little town. Truth be told, he understood her desire to leave. He hadn’t, at the time, but he did now. Now that he had gotten out, had the chance to see the country and part of the world, he understood just how stiflingly small Dillion was. It had been perfect for him, but for Julie, he didn’t think it was. She belonged in a big city where she could flourish and grow. 

She sat up and took the coffee from him, a smile playing on her lips. “I had my reasons.” she said taking a sip of his coffee. “I had a friendship that needed repairing and figured it should be done face to face. The guy can’t be trusted to answer phone calls anymore.” 

Tim smiled sheepishly at that. She had stayed for him. He would have picked up the phone if she’d called him, especially after that night on the field, but he was glad she had stayed. “We’ll,” he said grabbing his cup back from her, “I’m sure he’s glad you’re back,” he told her taking a sip. He was glad she was back. He was happier to have her back than any other part of his life. He’d always known that he could do anything with Julie in his corner, but he’d lost her for awhile. “But I bet he’d pick up the phone, too. If you decided to leave.” He didn’t want her to leave, it would break a small part of him if she did, but he would pick up the phone. He would call her all the time. He would never ever let what happened before happen again. 

Julie shook her head. “I’m not leaving and he’s not getting rid of me.” she said firmly. 

It made Tim smile even more, knowing that Julie was staying. He worried about that. He knew she hated Dillion but she was there anyway. “He doesn’t want to get rid of you,” Tim said softly, looking at her. His words were meant to counter her previous comment but they felt much heavier. They were the most honest words he’d felt in a long time. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything for her. She’d been his best friend, his only friend, for the better part of a decade, but that didn’t stop the feelings from happening. Tim had, inadvertently, fallen for the one person he was sure would never return his feelings. Julie Taylor deserved someone like Matt, even if he wasn’t what she wanted. She didn’t need a drunk ex-pro baller dragging her down. 

*****

Julie swallowed hard, his words left a pit in her stomach. She didn’t really know what to say to that, so she stole the cup of coffee back. “You should have made a different cup,” she said draining the cup. “That way we could both have a cup.” Changing the subject was so much easier than acknowledging his words. She was sure he hadn’t meant them the way she wanted to take them. 

“Yeah, well, someone broke a cup, so…” he said with a smile.

“Yeah, you!” she said with a laugh. “You knocked the cup over. You made the mess.” She told him simply. It had been him that spazzed out on her. 

“You still caused me to knock it over,” he told her poking her. 

“Did you fall asleep standing up or something? How could you have possibly not heard me coming down the hall?” She didn’t think she had been silent. Granted she had been trying really hard to walk, but she could not have been quiet enough to sneak up on him. 

“I’m tired!” he said defensively, but his smile told her he was joking. At least the defensive part of his tone was a joke. She was sure he was tired. He’d been up at least as long as she had been plus practice after. He had to be dead on his feet. 

“Should I leave?” she asked. She didn’t want to, but they did both need sleep. 

Tim shook his head. “I told you you could stay here tonight. I can take you home in the morning.” Julie smiled and shifted her position on the couch so that she was sitting up. She was ready for bed herself honestly. “How about we call it a night then?” she asked. 

Tim nodded and stood up, his hand out for her. Julie took it without thought after putting the cup down on the table Tim pulled her from the couch and silently lead her back up the stairs and down the hall to what she was sure was a guest room. She’d still not been given a full tour of his home, but she would worry about that later. She was tired and so was he. The night’s events had worn her out. 

She opened the door and flicked on the flight to the dark room. Her eyes wandered around the lightly decorated room, taking in the light yellows and grays. She hadn’t expected to find something so well decorated in Tim’s house. She was sure he’d paid someone to decorate. This was not something she could see him picking out. 

“Thank you,” she said softly. She turned back to look at him, her smile faltering slightly. His expression was once again unreadable. She had thought it was the alcohol, but she wasn’t drunk anymore… or well, not like she had been. Still she couldn’t read him. 

“Good night, Jules.” he said softly leaning in and pressing his lips to her cheek. Before she could say or do anything, Tim had turned on his heels and started down the hall. “Good night Tim,” she said watching him disappear into his own room. The click of his door made her sigh. Something had changed with them. She was sure of it. Her kiss, his words and his goodnight… It was all so different from what she was used to with him. It scared her. She didn’t want to lose him. His friendship was too important. 

Julie stepped into the guest room, leaving her door open (she didn’t like the idea of sleeping with it shut) and landed on the bed, sinking softly into the plush covers before closing her eyes and letting her mind wander over the events of the night. Her mind betrayed her, focusing not on everything, but only on how it had felt to have him on top of her. She felt bad for knocking him over but only barely. Sleep came fast for Julie, her exhaustion, coupled with the alcohol made it easy for her to sleep, even if the dreams were a little more vivid that she would have wanted. Tim was the star in all of them.


	6. Infatuation

Ch6- Infatuation 

Infatuation By Maroon 5  
Not seeing the rest of you is getting the best of me  
It’s such a shame that you shot me down  
It would have been nice to be around  
I’m touching your skin  
If it’s only a fantasy, then why is it killing me?  
I guess this must be infatuation (I want it…)

Hands ran over the bare skin of her thigh, pulling her skirt up higher, revealing more skin. Julie shuddered at the feel of his touch. Her fingers tangled and twisted into his hair pulling him closer to her. Tim sucked and nipped at her collarbone and she stretched her neck out to give him better access. She moaned softly, his name a whisper on her tongue. His mouth was heaven. Her body shook with desire, her skin prickled with heat under his touch. His hands moved over her body pulling the shirt over her head before laying her down on the plush couch in his living room. His lips trailed kisses down her throat and over the swell of one of her breasts. 

“Jules,” he said softly, her name more like a prayer. She loved the way he said her name. 

“Tim,” she moaned softly, her hand moving down his back and over the hard, defined muscles.

“Jules,” he said again a little more sharply, this time there was an accompanying shake. 

Jules woke with a start, blinking against the bright lights of her classroom. Her copy of Fahrenheit 451 had been used as a pillow. Apparently she had fallen asleep at her desk while trying to grade midterms. “Tim?” she asked blearily looking up at the man clothed in leather, his bike helmet resting in one hand. 

“Good dream?” he asked with a little smirk. 

Her eyes went wide and she sat up a little straighter, her cheeks flushing bright red when the realization of just what she was dreaming about hit her. She could almost feel his lips on her skin and hear his moans. “What are you doing here?” she asked confused. She figured it was safer than thinking about her dream. She could still feel the ghost of his hands on her skin. It made her shiver just thinking about it. 

“We were supposed to meet for dinner, Jules,” Tim said raising his eyebrows at her. 

She covered her cheeks with her hands, her blush intensifying. “Oh God, Tim!” she said jumping up from her seat. “I’m so sorry. I completely forgot.”

Tim nodded, a frown on his face. “It’s alright, Jules. It’s not like it was a date or anything,” Why did his words feel more pointed and slicing to her than she was sure he meant the to be? “I was just worried. You never miss a dinner.” 

“I’m so sorry Tim,” she said sadly. Julie never missed anything when Tim was involved. It made sense to her that he would come looking for her. “Let me make it up to you?” she offered. “I’ll cook. We can go just go to my apartment instead of out.” She was too tired to be social and going anywhere with Tim Riggins meant being social. “What do you say?” 

 

Tim considered the idea for all of a second, it looked like before he was nodding. “But, I’m driving,” he said firmly.

“You’re going to leave your bike here?” she asked, challenging his request. There was no way he would leave his Triumph behind. Julie knew he wouldn’t. 

“Nope,” he said with a grin. “We’re leaving your little Prius. I’ll call coach when we get to your place and he can bring it home for you.” 

Julie shoved her stuff into her back and huffed. “He’s not your coach anymore, Riggins’,” she scoffed. “You don’t need to rescue his daughter all the time,” she told him, trying to hide the blush that was creeping up on her again. The idea of being pressed against him on his bike made her tingle all over. 

“I’m not doing it for him,” he said softly. 

Julie’s heart skipped a few beats and she looked up at him, not daring to hope that he could be doing it because he honestly wanted her safe. She knew he did, but she always figured his overprotective nature was because she was Coach T’s daughter. 

Tim cleared his throat and shook his head. Julie was getting used to not being able to read him. It was frustrating the heck out of her, but she was getting used to it. She had spent years understanding him and suddenly it was all gone. She had no idea what had changed, not in his head anyway. 

She knew what had changed on her part. She was attracted to Tim Riggins. The idea terrified her though not for the reasons it would have in high school. The Tim Riggins back then and the Tim Riggins standing in her classroom were, albeit very much the same, very different. He wasn’t the lost little puppy he used to be. He was still lost, but he was all grown up. This Tim, the Tim that had been starring in her dreams for the better part of three weeks was a different kind of hot than he had been in high school. 

Julie was not blind, she knew he was hot back then. He was the perfect soulful bad boy. He had a heart of gold, but he was from the wrong side of the tracks and tended to have a complete disregard for rules. There was an easy appeal to him back then, but it had never been something that struck Julie’s fancy. Her attempt to kiss him had been an error in judgment back then and had, until a few weeks ago, never crossed her mind. 

No, this, what she was feeling, was so completely different. It wasn’t just a desire to make her dream come true. She refused to let herself think about that though. She just wanted him around. Why, she didn’t want to try and figure out. 

“Fair enough,” she said with a sigh. “Do you have an extra helmet?” she asked, pointing at his black one. “Because if you don’t, we’re leaving your baby behind and take my tiny Prius,” she told him matter-of-factly. She was not getting on a bike of any kind without protection. She trusted Tim, it was everyone else she didn’t trust. 

“Of course, Jules. I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t,” he told her. “It’s on the bag, on the side of the bike. How about we head out?” 

Julie pulled her bag around her back and nodded. She didn’t say anything, she simply walked out of the classroom, Tim behind her. It felt strange, walking out of high school with him. It was like nothing had changed. He was a senior, she was a junior and he was giving her a ride home. Only everything was so different. So different. 

Tim reached into the knapsack on the side of the bike and pulled out a second helmet that Julie took from him. “Thanks,” she said quietly as she climbed on the bike. Tim got on and she slid down the seat against him. Her chest pressed firmly to his back. The closeness was almost too much for her to take. Tim reached back, a smirk on his face. “You’re going to want to hold onto to me, Jules,” he said, pulling her hands around his waist. 

Julie’s hands gripped tight to his leather jacket, her body pressed even closer to his body. She rested her head between his shoulder blades and tried to focus on the rumble of the bike under her and not the way Tim’s body felt. It was useless. Completely and utterly useless. Her body pressed against his only supplied her with more intimate knowledge to add to her dreams. She already knew what his hands felt like on her. She already knew what it felt like to have his body on top of her. This was just going to add to her fantasies. She was sure that tonight, when she went to sleep, he would once again be the star of her dreams. She wasn’t even sure she minded anymore. 

The first time she’d had a sexy dream about Tim, she had figured it had been because of the alcohol she had consumed and the kiss she had stolen from him. It was only a few days after that after all, but they kept happening. On days when they would meet up for dinner the dreams were always so much more….detailed. On days when she talked to him on the phone they were less detailed but more vocal. She wasn’t getting much sleep because of them. She felt like a sex crazed teenager with no ability to stop the desire. It was driving her nuts and making her cranky. 

Julie was not a person that could survive without sleep. She needed copious amounts of caffeine as it was, but a lack of sleep was a punishment worse than death. She snapped at everyone. Her students got a surly side of her than many didn’t know existed. She hated suffering fools. When she had enough sleep and caffeine, she could deal with them with ease. Without, Julie had no patience for stupid people and it showed. She was harsh and bitchy. She didn’t have the ability to stop her sass either. It flowed from her like water from a fountain. No was saved her vitriol. Well, one person was. Tim was the cure for her anger. She couldn’t help it. Everything just felt right when he was around. 

****

Tim started the bike, letting it idle under him. He closed his eyes and sighed, thankful that the noise of the bike hid it. He hadn’t realized just how tense he had been until now. When he showed up at the restaurant and she wasn’t there, he shrugged it off because he had been a little early. 

He waited, had a coke, read the menu over and over and generally looked pathetic. The waitress frowned at him repeatedly when he told her she would be there. He never specified who the she was, but he didn’t feel like he needed to.

An hour passed and Tim grew worried. He tried her cell phone a few times before he remembered she still hadn’t gotten it replaced after she’d run it over. She liked being unconnected, she said. Tim had argued with her, but that was about to change. He was going to demand that she get a new one. He couldn’t not be able to call her. She had a landline, so he’d tried that a few times as well, but her voicemail had been the only answer he received. 

By the time an hour and a half had passed, Tim was completely terrified that something had happened to her. She was never late. Not ever. He could set his watch by her. He was the one that was late, not her. He paid for his soda and lef, pushing his Triumph to speeds that would get him a speeding ticket or more if a cop in the town actually cared to pull him over to actually ticket him. Tim got pulled over to talk football, nothing else. He zipped passed East Dillon high only registering her car in the parking lot after he’d passed. Tim skidded to a halt, his bike sliding on the asphalt before he spun it back around. He pulled up next to her car, his bike idling loudly while he warred with himself. On the one had, Julie had stood him up (for lack of a better term, it wasn’t a date, so he supposed the term wasn’t completely applicable), on the other, she was clearly working, so maybe she hadn’t been able to get away. He would call her on standing him up but if she was stuck at work, he didn’t want to bother her. 

Tim kicked the stand down and killed the engine before sliding off the bike. The parking lot was mostly empty, save for her car and one or two more. The school was relatively dark comparatively. it had been late afternoon early evening when Tim got to the restaurant, it was now night. The moon was full and the stars twinkled. The clouds covered some of them but the vast majority of stars shone bright. Tim walked through the halls of East Dillon like he knew where he was going. He’d been in the school a few times for games but he’d never actually been to Julie’s class. It took him longer than he would have liked to find her. When he did, he stopped to watch her. She was hunched over her desk, not moving. At first that had worried him. He’d had a sudden intense fear that something was wrong, until… until her moan. He’d frozen in the doorway when he heard the little noise from her. He didn’t know what she was dreaming about but if the moan was anything to go on, he could guess. He’d been tempted to just let it play out, but he couldn’t do that, it was rude. 

“Jules,” he said reaching out to wake her up. He had expected it to be hard. He knew she was a sound sleeper. He’d heard tales from her parents and complaints from Matt of the years about how they needed to practically dump a bucket of water on her to wake her up. She was not an easy person to wake. 

He pulled back from his memory, refusing to let his mind wander anymore. He revved the engine of the bike that purred under him before putting the bike into reverse and slowly moving them out of the parking spot. He couldn’t be thinking about the way his name sounded on her lips. Not when it had been paired with a moan. He had needed to step back from her for a second because the desire he suddenly felt was almost overwhelming. Something so simple as his name had turned him on more than he could remember ever being. He knew he was in trouble. Being around her was getting more difficult. It was harder to ignore his desire when she was close to him, which was becoming a normal thing. The last few weeks had seen an increase in their dinners together and their nights spent talking on the phone. Neither of them went to bed without telling the other good night. It was like they’d never lost touch. Nothing had changed and yet, everything had for Tim. 

“Hold on tight, Jules,” he told her, glancing back at her. She was already holding on, but he didn’t want her to let go. God, he never wanted her to let go. Not just on the bike but in everything. She was his lifeline. Thoughts of her had pulled him out of the bottle. Remembering how proud she had been of him had been his reason for getting sober. She didn’t know it had been her. Well, that picture of her and the memory of her, that had done it. No one did. He’d never told anyone that his strength had come from a friendship he had let die in his misery. 

Tim felt her grip on him tighten and smiled in spite of himself. He knew falling for this girl was a bad idea. She was way too good for him. He’d always known she was out of his league. She was out of his league in a way that Lyla and Lana weren’t. His brother and Lyla both never wasted a moment to remind Tim that she was above him. Lana hadn’t until he started drinking again and then it was Lyla all over. The looks of disgust and irritation on her face mirrored Lyla’s almost perfectly. He’d given up on Lana the second she started reminding him of Lyla. He didn’t need another one of those in his life. He had thought he’d escaped that kind of persecution. He’d been wrong. It had been that persecution that had made him push Julie away. He couldn’t handle it from her. He couldn’t see the disgust in her eyes. 

WIth Lyla and Lana he found a cold indifference for when it came to their judgements. The idea that Julie would also turn on him left him hollow and empty. In a very Tim Riggins fashion, he had, rather than face the music and do what was hard, done what was simple. He’d ignored calls and never picked up the phone. It was simple, yes but it was also difficult, in a way that he hadn’t actually expected. Pushing Julie Taylor away had not been easy. It had taken months for her to stop calling him, longer for him to stop almost calling her. 

He put the bike into gear and sped off, a high squeal coming from behind him. He couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him. He liked that little sound that came from her. He’d never given her a ride on his bike. She’d been in the busted up Chevy plenty of times and even in the expensive cars the NFL had afforded him, but this was completely different. He would make it a point to get her on this bike more, if for no other reason than because he loved the way her hands felt around him. 

The drive through the town was quick and easy but too short for Tim. Before he knew it, he was pulling up in front of her little apartment and killing the engine. Tim’s foot came down with the kickstand and he rested the bike slowly. Julie hadn’t let go or even moved more than a little bit to acknowledge that they were at her place. “Jules,” Tim said, his hand grabbing hers that held his waist. “You’re going to have to let go so that we can go inside.” He glanced back at her while he pulled his helmet off. His hair, that he’d gotten used to having short but was now growing in length again, felt like it was standing on end. 

“Don’t want to,” she said. At least he was pretty sure that was what she said. Her voice was muffled by the helmet. 

“Do I need to carry you?” He would gladly do it. He’d carried her before. He had no problems picking her up. In fact, he would love a reason to touch her more. 

Julie’s hands slipped from his waist and she pulled the helmet off, her long beautiful blond hair going everywhere. Tim tried not to let his disappointment show. 

“Come on, I have dinner to make,” she said handing the helmet to him and dismounting the bike. She did it more gracefully that he had expected her to. He was impressed. 

He pulled the keys from the ignition and pocketed them before following her off the bike. He left the head gear with the bike. He wasn’t worried about theft, it was Dillon for god’s sake. “Whatcha making me?” he asked, falling in step with her as they walked up the path to her place. 

“Thats a good question…” she said, pulling her keys out of her purse. “How do you feel about tofu?” she asked glancing sideways at him. 

Tim pulled a face. He could and would eat it if he had to, but he would prefer not to. He had lived for years in the land of fruits and granola. Honestly, it was a place that fit Julie perfectly. The few times she had come to visit it had always seemed like she was in heaven. “I would prefer not, but…” he shrugged. He knew she wouldn’t have any meat in the house. Jules had gone vegetarian somewhere between sophomore and junior year, much to the dismay of her parents. A vegetarian in Texas was about as out of place as a cat in dog show. 

“Spaghetti it is!” she said with a laugh. “If I’d thought I was going to be making dinner for you, I would have bought something you would eat. Sorry about that,” she said letting them both in to her place. She dropped her keys in a bowl on a table next to the door and set her bag down before kicking off her shoes. 

Tim followed suit with his shoes, he knew the rules of her house. No shoes. He was okay with that. “Spaghetti works, quick and tasty. You don’t need to go out of your way for me, Jules,” Tim told her honestly. He never wanted her to put herself out because of him. He wasn’t worth it. 

“It’s hardly going out of my way, Tim. If I’m going to have you over, I should have something you’ll eat.” She disappeared into her room as she spoke, leaving Tim alone. He figured she was changing out of her work clothing. His suspicions were confirmed moments later when she walked out of her room in a pair of blue flannel pants and a well worn Panthers championship shirt. 

Tim went to answer her but stopped at the sight of her. She could make anything look sexy, he knew that, but standing there in a 2006 championship shirt, the year he had help lead them to the win, it changed something for him. 

“What?” she asked looking down at herself. 

Something must have shown on his face. His lust and desire for this girl was getting stronger and stronger. He was in so much trouble, he knew he was. 

“Nothing,” Tim said shaking his head. He turned away from her trying like hell to get ahold of himself. He was not going to screw up his friendship with her because he couldn’t keep his feelings for her in check. He couldn’t risk it. She was too important to him.


	7. Requited or Unrequited

Ch7 - Requited or Unrequited

 

Julie frowned as he turned away from her. He was getting harder and harder to understand and it was starting to anger her. Ever since the kiss, Tim had felt distant to her. Maybe it was her, projecting, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was him pulling away because he didn't return her feeling.

She crossed her arms and glared at him. She was tired of him doing this. She was tired of not being able to understand him. She wanted to know what was going on in his head. Tim was not easy to understand normally, but Julie prided herself on knowing him better than anyone. Even Lana would call Julie for help from time to time. She’d been shocked the first time it happened, but over the years her and Lana had become friends. She’d visited a few times and stayed with the two of them while she was there. It stopped, once he started drinking again, though. Lana had given up and no matter how much she tried to help, it was pointless. Julie knew how stubborn and frustrating Tim could be, but she never once felt like giving up on him. 

"You know what," she snapped, "you can lie to everyone else, but don't you dare lie to me." She glowered at him as he turned around to look at her. She folded her arms across her chest, her foot tapping on the hardwood of her apartment. 

"Jules, what..." he started, his brow knitted together in confusion. 

"Don't fucking start, Tim. Something is wrong. Something has been for a few weeks. You've been pulling away from me," they'd seen each other almost every day for the last two weeks. They went to dinner or they did school things. Tim would watch game tapes and talk plays with her while she would correct students’ homework and make lesson plans for the days and weeks to follow. It was simple and it was a routine she had found comfortable and enjoyable. Tim’s presence in her life felt right. However, there was something between them that was strained. She knew what it was. It was the kiss. He hadn’t said anything about it and neither had she, but it hung in the air regardless. “It’s written all over your face,” she said trying to keep her anger and not let the pain of his rejection get to her. 

She’d been rejected by him twice in her life. The first time, she’d not given it much though. She’d been drunk, hurt by Matt and wanting to forget him. Tim had rescued her from… She couldn’t even remember the guys name. This time though, this time hurt. Sure, she’d been drunk again, but it was completely different, wasn’t it? She wasn’t using him to hurt Matt. She would never do that. But, did he think that? Is that why he was acting the way he was? Or was it because he really didn’t feel anything for her? 

“You don’t have to talk about it,” she told him, glancing up at him. “I get it, okay?” she said taking a deep breath. She was sure it was because he only saw her as a best friend or worse a little sister. “But don’t lie to me. I have seen you at your very worst and your very best, Tim. I deserve better than that.” She turned on her heel and marched into the kitchen to start making dinner. She herself was famished, but that wasn’t why she walked away. She hated crying in front of anyone, but in front of Tim it was like showing him she was weak. She’d cried that night, but if she hadn’t been drunk, she probably wouldn’t have let herself cry in front him. This time it was different, though. This time he was the reason for the tears. She didn’t want him to know how hurt she was because of him. Or rather, because she had let herself care about someone that would never see her in any way beyond what they were. 

In the kitchen, she busied herself with starting the pasta. She bent to get the pot from the drawer under the stove and filled it with water from the sink. She moved as quietly as she could, her tears falling silently from her eyes. She was a fool to fall for him. 

She’d known him for years, seen the best and worst of him and all the in between. She’d watched his break up with Lyla and his downward spiral from that. She’d helped him through it and watched him get himself back on track. She watched him with Lana, watched him fall for her, love her so completely that all the man-whore rumors about Tim Riggins were laid completely to rest. She watched him get signed to the NFL. She watched him play, every game. She’d seen him play in the stadium whenever she could. It didn’t matter. Her and Matt would go to the Bears’ games and root for #33 on the Seahawks. They watched his games on tv and flew his number from their balcony. It was more Julie than Matt, honestly. Matt liked football, but he had never really cared about it once he wasn’t playing. Julie had hated football in high school, but Tim being signed changed that. 

She watched the water bubble softly, waiting for it to boil and sniffed softly. She hated crying. It made her face puffy and gave her a headache. Crying over Tim Riggins was even worse. She’d thought she was immune to him and his charms. She’s skated past it in high school when everyone else (both guys and girls) fell at his feet. Julie held her own and saw past all that. She hadn’t fallen for his charms or his crazy good looks. Okay, she could, even then, admit that Tim Riggins was drop dead gorgeous, but he had never been her type. Now though… Now he was exactly what she wanted and couldn’t have. She would never have him. She might as well just suck it up and get over it. It wasn’t worth losing his friendship over. 

She raised her hand to wipe her tears away, but her elbow was captured by a firm hand. “Jules,” Tim said softly. He tugged lightly on her arm willing her to look at him. 

Julie wanted to fight it, wanted to pull from his grip and push him away because she was angry with herself for feeling the way that she was, but she didn’t. Instead, she turned into him and glanced up. His hand came up to her face and his thumb wiped the tears away from her cheeks and under her eyes. 

“I’m not sure what it is you get,” he told her softly, “because honestly, I’m a little confused.” His hands threaded through her hair, trailing down her long locks before he looked back up. 

She closed her eyes, the tears that had clung to her lashes broke and slid down her cheeks. Julie wanted to ask him what he was confused about, but she didn’t get the chance. She felt his lips on her cheeks, kissing her tears away. Her breath hitched and her eyes fluttered open to look at him as he pulled back. 

“I’m not trying to shut you out Jules,” he told her. “I just…” she watched his adam's apple bob as he swallowed hard. “I don’t really know what to do.” 

She cocked an eyebrow at him, confused by his comment. “About what, Tim?” she asked. There was nothing for him to do. The kiss she had given him could go on being ignored if that was what he wanted. She just didn’t want him to hide from her like he was. It hurt her more that he was keeping her at arms length. They’d never talked about the kiss at the party when she was drunk, with the exception to tell him she was sorry. They’d acted like nothing happened. Why couldn’t this be the same? 

“About…” he took a deep breath, his eyes flicking between her eyes and her lips, like he was trying to decide where he wanted to look. “This,” he said before leaning in and placing a kiss on her lips. 

Julie felt a shock run through her system when his lips touched hers. It was the first kiss she’d ever had with him that wasn’t under the influence of anything beyond perhaps sleep deprivation on her part. It took her a moment to respond because of the shock of his kiss. By the time she’d realized what was happening, he was pulling back because she had remained completely still. She hadn’t even kissed him back.

Her hand reached up and grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him back down into another kiss. This one she responded to. She pressed her lips to his, her eyes shut tight scared that this was another dream. She felt his tongue against her lips and she opened up for him, taking him into her mouth, giving him access to her mouth. This was better than any dream she had ever had. This had to be real. 

Tim’s hands landed on her hips, pulling her tightly against his body. Her hands wrapped around his neck and she lifted up on her tip toes to kiss him better. Their height difference had never really been noticed by her until now. She liked how tall he was compared to her. 

They stood in her kitchen like that, hands firmly planted in place, just learning the way the other tasted and kissed for a few minutes, until the pot of water boiled over, making the burner hiss angrily. Julie pulled back from the kiss, her head spinning from the lack of oxygen or that sudden influx of Tim. She wasn’t sure, it didn’t really matter, she was dizzy. “Oh gosh,” she said turning to the pot and pulling it off the burner. She hadn’t even had a chance to put the pasta in the pot. 

“How about take out?” Tim offered. He hadn’t let go of her. His grip was different, she’d moved away from him when the pot boiled over but he kept a hand on her none the less. 

Julie bit her lip and looked up at him. She could taste him on her lips. She was finding it hard to focus on anything but his lips. “Take out works,” she said breathlessly. 

Tim turned the burner off before taking her hand in his and leading her back out into her living room. “We can figure out where we want to get food from and maybe…” he paused for a second trying to figure out what he wanted to say. “Maybe we could talk?” 

Julie had to let out a little chuckle at that. Tim was not a talker. He never had been. She got more out of him than most, but more often than not, she was the one that talked and he listened. 

“We can talk,” she said letting go of his hand and walking over to the little desk she kept in the corner. She opened a drawer and pulled out a stack of menus. Okay, so Julie wasn’t big on cooking for one normally. She walked over to where Tim had sat down on her couch and handed him the menus before taking the same position she had the night she’d spend over at his house. Her legs in his lap, her back against the arm of the couch. This time though, Tim was much closer. She was practically sitting on him. She didn’t feel as pushed away as she had. His kisses told her she had been wrong, at least in that he hadn’t been attracted to her. Beyond that, she wasn’t really sure what to make of everything. “You pick, I did say I was going to make you dinner.” So she’d failed him on that promise. She had intended to make him dinner. She would make it up to him. 

“Alright,” Tim said not even arguing with her. He spread the menus out over her legs and examined each and every one of them. He took his time in deciding but Julie wasn’t paying attention to that. The hand that wasn’t touching and tossing menus onto her coffee table had slid up her leg, his fingers dragged gently along the inside of her calf, moving higher as the menus vanished from her legs. He acted like he was doing nothing more than sitting there. Like this was perfectly normal for them. Julie however was going crazy. “I got it!” he said holding up a menu from a local Japanese restaurant. “You can have your tofu and I can have food,” he said with a grin. 

She kicked him lightly and agreed with the place he’d picked out. Tofu did sound good. She was glad he had picked that restaurant in particular. They had amazing food. She could eat a large amount of their menu. It was one of the few places in Dillon that catered to people like her. 

“What would you like?” he asked, his fingers moving higher. He was focused on her now, his eyes were shining with a light Julie had never seen. He knew exactly what he was doing to her and he was enjoying it. She squirmed under his touch, her mind going blank at his request. She was sure he was talking about food, but at the moment, her mind was as far away from food as it was possible to be. Judging by the smirk on Tim’s face, he knew exactly where her mind was. 

Evil. Tim Riggins was evil.


	8. Desire

Ch8 - Desire

Tim’s hands moved slowly over her legs, a smile on his face as he looked at her. He could tell that his touches were affecting her. He was so glad that the chance he took in the kitchen paid off. He didn’t know at the time how she would react to him kissing her. He hadn’t really thought that he was going to kiss her. It hadn’t been until he saw her face, the tear-stained streaks and the tiny little drops of tears that clung to her lashes that he made his mind up. 

When he’d walked into the kitchen after giving her a few moments of space (she had clearly been upset with him, he thought it best to give her space), he’d figured he’d talk to her, try and figure out what he’d done to upset her. Tim was used to upsetting people, women in particular. He was good at that. All anyone needed to do was talk to Tyra to know how good at that he was. He had no idea what he’d done to Julie though. She said she got it, but Tim had no idea what it was. He had gone in to ask her to clear it up. That was all he wanted from her. Kissing her had not been planned but almost nothing had ever really been planned when it came to Julie Taylor. 

She had kissed him, twice in the decade they had known each other, but he had never once been the one to kiss her. There had been reasons both times but now, there wasn’t a reason for his trepidation. He didn’t want to lose her as a friend but if this could be more, Tim couldn’t afford to not take the risk. 

Julie was always on his mind. She’d been on his mind from the day he first saw her back in sophomore year. He could remember it as clear as day. It was his first day of sophomore year and she’d been a freshmen. She looked so scared in the new school. She wasn’t someone that surrounded herself with a large crowd so she had stuck out as a lone sheep among the herd. Tim had watched her from his small secluded corner of the hall. He had watched as she moved through the halls with purpose, held her head high and asked questions when she needed to. Julie never let fear stop her. She wasn’t afraid to admit she needed help and she offered it when it was asked of her in return. Tim hadn’t thought about her in a way that would have ever led him to where he was at the moment, not back then anyway. He admired her strength and her poise. He respected the girl she had been back then, but he had fallen in love with the woman she had turned into. 

Their friendship had gotten him through so much. Memories of her had saved his life. Back when he had first seen her, he hadn’t actually spoken to her. That didn’t come for a few years. Julie was not someone people like Tim Riggins approached. She was above him in so many ways. She was above Tyra and Lyla. Julie was a majestic creature who didn’t cavort with the likes of Riggins’. Tyra had been a bad influence on Julie, but Julie had been a good influence on Ty. It had been through Tyra that Tim had actually met and spoken to Julie. After that, he’d met her again through Matt. Their interactions were small at first but after the twister and the party their interactions happened more frequently. He’d grown to care about her and wanted to protect her. Julie had wormed her way into his heart without his say and when he’d realized it, there was too much at stake to just walk away from her. She was not an easy person to abandon. Tim hadn’t even considered it an option back then. 

It still wasn’t. It should never have been. He had been a fool to let her go when he had. He had thought about her every day of his downward spiral. She had always been in his mind. He wondered what she was doing, how she was if she missed talking to him as much as he missed her. He had a voicemail of hers that he’d kept on his phone, it was the last one she’d ever left him. She’d told him she was done trying to get in contact with him in it. If he had wanted to talk to her, he would know how to find her. Tim did know how to find her, but he’d never tried. It was too late. He was sure she was gone. 

His fingers traced the inseam of her pajama pants, watching her think. He’d asked her what she wanted for dinner, but he could tell her mind wasn’t on food at the moment. He was more than okay with that. He wasn’t all that hungry for food either. 

He licked his lips, his eyes on hers. He could taste her on him still. Her flavor was so much better when it wasn’t masked by alcohol. He leaned forward in a smooth motion and captured her lips again. Kissing her was unlike kissing anyone else. It sent shockwaves through his body. Her lips were soft and full, pouty and warm. She opened to him without his requesting it this time. 

Tim’s hands slid up her thighs and the side of her torso, to her neck and around. His fingers threaded into her long blonde hair, cradling her head as he kissed her. He was slow in the kitchen, determined to show her that he wanted this but not overly intense. These kisses were nothing like that. He gave her passion in his kisses now, devouring everything she gave him. He wanted her to know that this was what he wanted. The small kiss on his kitchen floor had been on his mind for weeks and this was the result. This was the way he should have and would have kissed her, had there not been the taste of tequila in the way. 

His lips left hers, trailing down the soft skin of her throat, moving to behind her ear. Tim shifted in his seat, moving her legs as he did so so that he was looming over her a little more. It gave him a better angle and allowed her hands to do more than hold onto his shirt. 

“Tim,” Julie moaned softly. It was the exact same sound he had heard from her earlier in the day. It spurred him on. His hands wandered over her body, clothing gathered in bunches, but he didn’t do much more than tease the bare skin of her belly. 

Her hands pushed on his chest, asking him to sit up and Tim acquiesced to the request. Julie sat up, her tongue sliding over her plump lips as she looked at him. Her hands reached for the hem of her Panthers champion shirt and she pulled it over her head, her long hair fanned out and cascaded down her body, her shirt was tossed away without thought. 

Tim’s eyes ran the length of her exposed skin, devouring her with his eyes. The sharp contrast of the dark blue fabric of her bra against her pale sun deprived skin. He could tell she had been away from Texas for so long, his skin was a similar color. The bronzing from the sun had washed away over the years they’d both spent way. He much preferred this over dinner. His hands reached out for her, pulling her back to him. He liked looking, but touching her newly exposed skin was so much better. Her hands found the hem of his own gray Dillon shirt and pulled it over his head before crushing their lips together. He liked that she was active in this. It told him she wanted this too. He hadn’t misjudged this situation. 

Tim’s hands wrapped around her back and he leaned back with her against him. The touch of their skin together was incredible. He was shocked he’d managed to keep his hands to himself this long. After he realized his feelings for her, he’d been amazed at his will power. He was never getting that back. Not now that he knew what her skin felt like under his fingertips. 

*****

Julie’s hands slid into his hair and she went willingly with him. She didn’t know what to expect but this had not been it. She’d been more than thinking about it. Her nights had been plagued with images just like this.

Her legs slid to the side of Tim as he lay back on the couch. She straddled his lap, her body draping over his. Her hands held his hand, her hair acting as a curtain hiding what they were doing to the world around them. There was nothing like kissing Tim Riggins, she was sure of it. His hands slid over her back to the bro she wore, his fingers toying with the idea of removing it. She could feel that he wanted to but there was something holding him back. She smiled into the kiss and broke away from his lips, sitting up on him. He was gorgeous laid out under her. She’d never thought a man was gorgeous before but Tim was. His chest heaved, his breathing matched hers. His lips were swollen but she only saw his eyes. They were trained solely on her. He wasn’t looking anywhere but at her. She felt like nothing else mattered because he was looking at her.

She took a deep breath, her top teeth biting into her lower lip. She was feeling self-conscious. She was never self-conscious but this was Tim. She’d known him since she was 15. He knew more about her than anyone in the world. She reached behind her, not willing to let her insecurities get the better of her. She unhooked her bra, the straps falling off her shoulders. Tim reached up, his hands running over her skin as he did so, and helped her remove the garment from her body. His hands cupped her breasts, massaging them. She arched into his touch, a moan escaping her lips. His hands weren’t soft but they felt so good on her.

“Jules,” Tim moaned, making her desire for him spike. She had never expected to hear her name on his tongue like that. It was heaven in one word.

He sat up slowly, his hand cupping her breast, bringing it to his lips. He pulled her nipple in between his lips. Julie’s eyes closed softly at the sensation. Her hands slipped from his hair and down his back, pulling her against him tighter.

“Tim,” she moaned, her body rocking softly against him. His hands on her skin, his mouth on her body set all her nerves on fire. A warmth spread through her body, pooling at her core. His hands moved slowly down her body, over her flat stomach to the waistband of her pajama pants. His fingers traced the edge of the elastic while his lips kissed the smooth skin of her body. She was normally so articulate but like this she couldn’t think past his name and the oh gods that ran through her head. 

Julie had never felt like this before. The way he made her body feel was intense. She felt like she was floating and on fire. Every touch of his sent a chill down her body. She had no idea how she could be hot and cold all at the same time but Tim made her feel everything. 

His fingers slid around the waistband of her pants, ghosting lower over the soft fabric. His fingers slid between her legs, over the material. His touch was light but it make her shake with a promised anticipation. It felt amazing, just that small touch. It had been so long since she’d been with anyone and even then it had only ever been Matt. Tim was in a completely different class than Matt.

Even the way she felt about Tim was different. Matt it had been easy, simple and expected. Tim was not easy. She knew he wasn’t. She knew better than most just how difficult Tim could be. His reputation from his teen years was not an easy reputation to ignore, even now. The people of Dillon saw what he used to be and expected him to become that again. She was sure Tim even expected himself to become that person again. He had worked too hard to lose that image she wasn’t about to let him get it back. 

The other part of him, the part of him that was an ex-proballer was another reputation that made Tim different. This was not a relationship she would be able to hide. There had always been speculations. When ever he was seen with her out and about. The rumors had always been squashed because they had always been false, but now… Now she was getting ahead of herself. She wasn’t in a relationship with him. They weren’t anything more than the friends they had spent years working on, this was, whatever it was but Julie couldn’t over think it. Not at that moment. 

She pushed the thought out of her mind as she pushed herself down onto his fingers a little. A small groan escaping her lips. She needed more. She pulled her body away from him slightly to speak. “Bedroom,” she said softly, her body rocking against his fingers. Her hand slid over the crotch of his jeans, palming him. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, her name a prayer on his lips. She hated that she had that barrier of clothing. She wanted to know what he felt like. The couch was not where she wanted to enjoy him, though. She wanted to experience everything he had to offer her and give him everything she could. She knew he had a lot to give her, if he was willing she would gladly take it. 

Tim’s hands changed positions, sliding over her ass as he swung his legs off the couch and stood up in one swift motion. Julie’s legs wrapped around his waist, her arms going around his neck. She wanted this. God did she. Her dreams had reached a boiling point, she was officially frustrated beyond belief and tired as hell. She was almost sure this was a dream. She didn’t want it to be, it felt real, but if she woke up needing a cold shower, she was going to cry or scream because this was the best sex dream she’d ever had.

Tim toed the door of her bedroom open and walked them both in but he didn’t make it to his destination before he had her pinned against the wall, devouring her skin in wet warm kisses. Julie moaned loudly, her head falling back against the wall. “Oh fuck,” she said, her hands gripping tightly at his shoulders. They were never going to make it to the bed if he kept this up. His kisses made her shiver against him. The weight of his body pressing her into the wall was beyond anything she had ever expected. He was so strong, so firm. She was sure he could crush her if he wanted. The very idea of that strength turned her on even more. 

Her hands reached between them, popping the button on his jeans and letting gravity do what it could to get him out of his pants. To hell with the bed, if Tim wanted her against the wall, he could have her. 

****

Tim reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, flipping it open before pulling out a small foil package. He did not want to have to stop this for anything. He wanted this girl so bad. He wasn’t sure he’d ever wanted anything or anyone as bad as he wanted her. 

He dropped the wallet and kicked out of his pants before walking them over to the bed. Jules deserved the bed. She deserved to be treated like more than a piece of ass, because she was more than that. Tim had never seen her as just a girl. Julie stood on a pedestal that no one in the world could touch. Tim couldn’t even touch it. He had never understood why she let him anywhere near her. She didn’t suffer fools, but Tim was the biggest fool in the world. 

His knees hit the bed and he slowly placed her on top of the neatly made linens. His lips trailing down her body as she went down. He kissed her skin, not leaving a single spot untouched. He nipped, sucked and kissed the sensitive skin, enjoying the flavors of her skin. He’d never known her taste, never imagined he would know it. His tongue circled her belly button, his hands pulling the hem of her pants down. The small foil wrapped condom lay at the edge of the bed till they were ready for it. He was glad he actually had one with him. He hadn’t actually been with anyone since his divorce. He’d had other things to focus on. 

Julie’s hands grabbed the linens on the bed, moaning his name softly. Her moans, his name on her lips made him harder. The anticipation of what was coming was driving him mad but he needed to take his time. He didn’t know if this was a one time thing. He wanted to enjoy everything about this. If it was all he got from her, he would take it and enjoy it. He was not going to lose this girl again. He would be in her life in whatever capacity she wanted him. 

“Tim!” Julie groaned softly, lifting her hips to let him take the garments from her body. In one smooth motion the pants and underwear were gone, tossed aside onto the floor somewhere. He really didn’t care where the clothing went. 

Tim stood up to remove the black boxer briefs he was wearing but stopped. He couldn’t take his eyes off the girl in front of him. Her lips were kiss swollen, her chest heaving as she breathed. Her hair fanned out under her and all over her bed. She was laying there naked and gorgeous and for just that moment she was all his. He wanted to savor the moment. 

“God Tim, hurry up!” she demanded, sitting up and grabbing the condom from the edge of the bed. She reached out for him, her fingers hooking into the waistband of the underwear, pulling him closer to her. 

Tim went willingly. He liked seeing her being demanding. It turned him on even more. “Pushy,” he said with a smirk, looking down at her. She looked up at him through a curtain of bangs and lashes, a smirk on her lips that mirrored his own. It was always frightening how hot this girl was. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were impatient.” 

“You have no idea,” she said, pulling his underwear down to his ankles. Tim stepped out of them, his eyes not leaving her as he did so. He watched her tear the little package open with her teeth, discarding the wrapped on the floor and rolling the rubber barrier down his long shaft. Her hand stroked him softly a few times before she scooted back on the bed. He followed her, crawling up her body until her was positioned perfectly between her legs. 

Tim didn’t slide in right away, he wanted to take his time. He wanted her to enjoy this. He wanted her to want this as much as he did. Her impatience was a beautiful sight to him. He wanted to see more of it. He teased her, his fingers ghosting over her thighs, pulling them around his hips. Her grip tightened around him, pulling him into her slightly. He fell forward, his hands placed on either side of her head. Tim smirked down at her, angling himself so that the head of his cock slid against her clit and thrust himself against her. 

Julie gasped, her hands gripping his biceps. He did it again, watching her mouth fall open, her gasps and small cries the only sound in the room. He loved the way she responded to him. He loved the way her breathy moans washed over him, giving him more incentive to tease her. 

He wanted to be inside her, wanted to know what it felt like to have her around him so completely, but he liked watching her writhe under him. He would know soon enough what she felt like, for the moment he was savoring the image under him. 

“Fuck, Tim!” she growled. Her hands wrapped around his neck, pulling him down into a hard kiss. “Stop teasing me and just fuck me.” Tim wasn’t used to hearing Julie Taylor talk like that. She was proper spoken and kind, she was not crass. He fucking loved it. 

He shifted his hips and thrust easily inside her, just like she had asked him to do. Her head fell back against a pillow a loud moan tearing through her throat. Tim’s head fell to the crook of her neck, his hips moving against her. His own breath was labored. The way she felt against him, the way her body moved, taking him deeper and deeper, it was almost more than he could handle. 

Their moans and groans filled the room, their bodies moved together in sync, as though this was exactly where they were always supposed to end up. Julie pulled back while Tim pushed forward. Working together to bring each other the pleasure they both sought. Tim knew this wasn’t going to last as long as he wanted it to. He wasn’t a teenager anymore and it had been too long since he’d been with anyone. His body was already wound so tight, it was a wonder he hadn’t snapped the second he slid into her. 

Her name fell from his lips as he moved. Tim was praising her in every way he could. He wanted her to know that the way he was feeling was because of her. There was no other reason for his orgasm. She was perfection in every way. He couldn’t tell her, but he loved her. He wanted to at least be able to show her. 

Julie’s nails dragged their way up his back making Tim arch back. The girl was sin. “God, Jules,” he gasped. His thrusts were becoming erratic, he knew he was spent. Julie met each and every one of his thrusts, adjusting with his rhythm. He could feel her body starting to tense as he moved, her moans and mewls growing with each thrust. 

“Tim,” she gasped, “Oh, god, I’m… Oh god.” 

Tim moved faster, his thumb sliding between them, pressing down on her clit, rubbing as he thrust. “Come on, Jules,” he urged her. He wanted to see her come undone. He wanted to know what she looked like and sounded like. He wanted to know that he had been the reason. 

Her hands tightened around his biceps, her nails digging into his flesh as she came. His name fell from her lips, a whispered shout that echoed around the room and thrummed loudly in his ears. His own release followed just a few firm thrusts after. 

Tim pushed through their releases, drawing them out until he could no longer think or move. He collapsed beside her on her bed, his sweaty body half covering hers. His nose was buried in the pillow beside her head, as he took a deep breath he was suddenly struck with a scent he had always loved but never associated with her. He’d always associated the smell with home, though he’d never known what it was. It filled his senses now and he exhaled softly. She smelled like home to him. He had no idea what to do with that knowledge.


	9. Dinner and a movie

Ch9- Dinner and a movie

Julie breathed deeply, her chest heaving, not just from what they’d just done, but also from the added weight of Tim. Her body felt stringy and weak. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt like this. Perhaps she never had. 

She felt him breathe deep and sigh against her, and she chuckled. “Are you smelling me?” she asked confused by his deep breath. It wasn’t like he was catching his breath. She knew what that sounded like. She’d been around him in the gym and on the field. She knew the different sounds he made. 

“You smell good,” he told her, making her laugh. 

“If you say so,” she laughed a little more, shaking her head at him. “You, however, could do with a shower,” she said, her nose wrinkling slightly. She was used to him showing up at the restaurants or wherever they met up straight from work. He was an assistant coach, their practices ran late sometimes. Tim didn’t sit on the sidelines and yell at the players. He was out there running with them, which meant he worked up a sweat. Showering didn’t always happen. His knee was a huge issue, but Tim pushed as far as he could. Julie knew him well enough to know that. 

She’d heard her dad talk about how good of a coach Tim was shaping up to be. She’d even overheard her dad talking about Tim possibly being able to become head coach when he retired. If Tim stuck it out that long. Julie didn’t know exactly what Tim’s plans for the future were, but she would love to see him make it to head coach if that was what he wanted to do. Tim knew the game like the back of his hand. He’d never once failed on the field. Even when he’d gotten hurt, he’d kept that ball in his hand. He hadn’t let it go until they had pried it from his hands. 

Julie remembered that day as clear as any. She closed her eyes and could recall with scary accuracy every single point of impact. She had been sitting on the couch in hers and Matt’s living room, her books laid out in front of her. She had been working on her lesson plans for the winter term. It was late November, but she wanted to get a jump on it. Her lesson plans weren’t getting very far, as she knew they wouldn’t. She’d put the Seahawks/Chargers game on, knowing she would end up watching all of it. Matt had been on the couch next to her, but he had been reading. 

Somehow, their roles had ended up reversed. Matt had stopped caring about football while Julie had found a strange love for the sport. She had hated it when she was growing up. Living in Texas, having a football coach for a father, it was all she heard about. It took over her life and caused her dad to miss her dance recitals. Julie had not grown up liking the sport. It ruined her life on more than one occasion. For Matt, she had put up with it though. When he’d finished with it, she had been relieved. She wouldn’t need to pretend anymore. And pretend, she didn’t. She suddenly found herself more interested in college ball, more particularly, San Antonio State’s college ball. Julie had gone away to the University of Chicago for English Lit, choosing to study humanities and work on a degree in teaching. Matt had decided to stick to his art. It worked for them. San Antonio was nowhere near her circle but it didn’t stop her from paying attention to it. She watched the games when she could catch them but as Tim’s career took off, as his notoriety reached more ears than just that of the small town that Tim Riggins, #02 fullback for San Antonio State hailed from, his games were publicized more which mean Julie got to watch them more. She watched only for him. She still didn’t like the game but on the days that he’d call, he’d ask her if she caught the game. She liked being able to say she did. She would give him her informed critique, in jest of course, and they would talk about the game, his school work, what she was working on with her own course load. The silence was filled mostly with his hums and her words. Tim didn’t talk much. That had been how their calls went and how Julie had become Tim’s unofficial go to for play advice.

The day the game changed, Julie had been yelling at the TV, urging Tim on. He couldn’t hear her, she knew that, but it didn’t stop her from jumping up and down like a crazy person as he sprinted down the field, the ball tucked tightly under his arm for a touchdown. She loved watching him run the field. He was just that good. 

She watched the jump Tim had taken to catch the ball, copying his move herself. She jumped up from the couch, disrupting Matt in his reading as she did so. Tim had caught the ball and she had cheered loudly, filling the room with her excited shouts. She watched the helmet collide with his knee, not thinking anything of it. She’d seen Tim take hits. It was Tim after all. What stopped her shouting was his hitting the ground and not getting back up. She froze in her spot, watching in horror, completely helpless. Tim was hundreds of miles away and Julie couldn’t get to him. Her hand had covered her mouth as she watched, silently begging him to get back up. Matt joined her in her silent prayer, his arm snaking around her waist and pulling her into a tight hug. They took Tim off the field on a stretcher, she remembered how silent and still all the commentators were. The crowd was on their feet joining her in her thoughts. The tears burned her eyes watching him like that. She’d been on the next plane to Seattle only hours later. It had been agony. The play was shown over and over. No matter where she went, it was all she saw on tvs. 

She opened her eyes as the weight on her lifted and looked over at him. He pulled the condom from himself before tossing it in the bin she kept beside her bed. He gave her a cheesy grin that she’d only ever seen him direct at her. Normally it would make her roll her eyes, today it made her heart leap. “You don’t like the smell of football practice and sex?” Tim asked, his fingers reaching for her. 

She shifted to her side, angling herself to face him. “It’s the football practice smell that’s a little off-putting,” she told him with a shrug. She didn’t mind the smell honestly. She lived with her dad and spent her high school career around Matt and Landry. The smell of sweat and metal didn’t bother her as much as one would think. “You could take a shower while I order dinner if you want,” she offered, her stomach flexing when his fingers touched her skin. 

“Or, you could join me,” he said. His voice was offhanded as though he didn’t care, but his eyes told a different story. Tim had the most expressive, soulful hazel eyes Julie had ever had the pleasure of gazing into. Looking into Tim’s eyes was like looking into a portal to his entire being. He didn’t let everyone see it, but hiding it from her had never been something he had even tried. She knew what he was feeling just from his tone of voice. At least, she had. This, with her and him, she had no idea what was going through his head. She had no idea if it was just a way to relieve stress and get off or if there was something more. Tim could go either way, honestly. He had that reputation but he also had a track record for long relationships. Tyra, Lyla and Lana had all been relatively long. Lana obviously being the longest and most serious. 

“Join you,” she said chewing on the inside of of her cheek as she thought. It was so very tempting. “Who would order the food and wait for it to get here, if I joined you though?” she asked, a smirk on her face. 

“Who said we needed dinner right this second?” he asked, pretending that his stomach hadn’t just given him away. 

Julie laughed at him. He was ridiculous. She’d known he was, but seeing it first had, like this, with that silly little grin, she understood why girls had fallen at his feet. “Can you keep it PG?” she asked. She had no form of protection in her home and she wasn’t sure he had anymore condoms hidden in his wallet. The fact was, she wasn’t sure she would be able to keep the shower PG. 

Tim’s face fell slightly and he shook his head. “Not a chance,” he said honestly. 

“Well, then, unless you have another foil package in your wallet,” she told him, her whole body flushing with a blush. She was assuming, but he had said he wouldn’t keep it PG. “Then I’m going to go order dinner while you shower.” 

She moved to get up from her bed but was stopped by a strong arm. Tim’s hand held her hip and pulled her against him completely. Her naked body pressed firmly against his. Her hands rested on his chest and she let out a shaky breath. He made her feel like a school girl laying in bed with her crush. She thought she had escaped the swooning over Tim Riggins phase that apparently plagued all girls from Dillon, but no. No, she had simply taken longer to hit that right of passage than the rest of the bloody town. 

“I won’t be too long,” he told her, his lips capturing hers in a heated firm kiss. 

Julie closed her eyes, her hands moving from his chest to around his neck. She slid her hand down his back, her palm flat against the hard muscles and pulled herself in even closer. She deepened the kiss, telling him without words that he better not. 

She was in so deep already with this. She was sure this was going to end poorly, but for the life of her she couldn’t stop herself. “Go get clean,” she said pulling back from him. “We can eat dinner and watch old movies or ESPN, if you want.” She didn’t watch the channel as often as she used to, but she still followed a few players. Ones she’d made friends with through Tim and then there was Smash. She didn’t keep tabs on him like she had on Tim but she knew his stats and where he was. She had never really known Smash. 

“Deal,” he said letting go of her. “We can finish Rebecca and watch sportscenter highlights after,” He gave her bright grin and slid off the bed, vanishing into her bathroom. 

Julie sat up, shaking her head. The image of Tim Riggins’ naked backside was a new favorite image of hers. One she would cherish for the rest of her life. Even if the rest of this went bad. 

She got up, dressing slowly before heading out to the living room to get her landline and place her order for sticky rice and mopo tofu for her as well as a plate of beef and bok choy stir fry for Tim. She didn’t eat meat but she would never deny him what he wanted. It grossed her out, but she could deal with it, as long as she wasn’t the one cooking it. She tossed the phone on the couch and walked over to the tv to queue up Rebecca in the DVD player. They’d started it a few days ago, but after she’d fallen asleep in his lap, Tim had called it a night. She didn’t blame him, she had just been sad to see him leave. 

She was in trouble, she could admit it, right then and there, she could see just how much trouble she was in. She was never supposed to cross this line with him. She was never supposed to sleep with Tim Riggins! Hell, she wasn’t supposed to fall in love with him either. One could argue she wasn’t even supposed to be friends with the guy. 

Girls like Julie Taylor did not have friends like Tyra Collette or Tim Riggins. They had friends like Lyla Garrity (the thought made her skin crawl). Girls like Julie Taylor fell in love with guys like Matt Saracen. They settled down, had a white picket fence, two point five children and became loving wives. Girls like Julie Taylor became their mother. Julie Taylor didn’t want to be a girl like that. She had never wanted to be a girl like that. 

She had run as fast as she could away from Dillon. She had believed it was suffocating, thought it had been what was holding her back. She’d gone to Chicago with Matt to reinvent herself. Change what Dillon had done and start over. Only, she hadn’t actually started over. She was still with Matt. She was still the same girl, only suddenly she was the naive girl from the small town. Julie had not expected that. Matt had helped her through that shock and she’d done what she knew. She didn’t change a damn thing about herself. She could take herself out of Dillon, but she couldn’t take Dillon out of her. 

It had take years for her to realize that she hadn’t actually started over. She had left Dillon, but her same go no where life had come with her. She felt bad thinking about Matt like that, but the fact was he had been the go no where life she should have ditched much sooner than she did. 

She didn’t know if Tim would be the same of if Tim even had anything to offer, but this time she was in charge of her own life. She wasn’t tied down by a relationship, she had no kids (thank god). She had a degree that could travel with her and get her a job anywhere she wanted, she did not need to stay in Dillon. She stayed though, because of one person and one person only. 

“Hey, Jules.” his voice was deep and rich, thick like honey and smooth. His drawl was lazy and understated. He made her smile and her heart stutter. 

She turned around to see him standing in her bedroom door, his hair wet and stringy, his jeans hanging low on his hips. She had been about to answer him, but the words vanished from her mind. He looked like a something right out of a dream, only she was pretty sure this was real. At least she hoped so. 

 

****

Tim rested against the frame of her bedroom door and smiled lazily at the girl of his dreams. He’d stood in the doorway for a long time, just watching her. He wasn’t sure what was going through her head, but she hadn’t noticed him. She’d moved around the room, tidying the place as she went, clearly stuck in her own head. He loved watching her. He’d started to do that since she came back. He would find himself just watching her. 

It had been a decade since they’d been in the same area together for more than a few weeks. The phone, internet and video chats had never afforded Tim the ability to just watch Julie be Julie. She was classic in her beauty, sweet and kind but hard as a diamond. He’d always known Julie was a girl that put people in their place. She did not have welcome stamped on her head, she did not allow people to walk all over her. 

In the years since they had parted ways in Dillon a lot had happened in their lives. almost none of which had been in the company of each other. He’d visit her and Seven when he was in Chicago for a game, but that only lasted at most a day or two. She came out to Seattle a few times. The longest they’d been in each others presence was the week she’d been in Seattle for a symposium on mid-century (which century, Tim didn’t ask) literature. She’d stayed with him and Lana because he had demanded it. Lana had wanted Julie to spend her week at a hotel but he would have none of it. He had had more than enough room and he wasn’t about to let one of his best friends spend money on a hotel. He hadn’t done it for Street (Lana had not had issues with that at the time) he wasn’t going to do it for Jules.. 

 

Her being in town had been amazing. They’d actually gone sight seeing, something he hadn’t ever done before. They’d gone to Pike Market and watched the fish fly (or be thrown, however you wanted to look at it). They’d gotten an overpriced cup of coffee at the very first Starbucks and walked all over the city. Perhaps his favorite part of her trip though was the trip to the gum wall. He’d heard about it on the news one night while she was in town. 

Laying in bed next to Lana, who had fallen asleep much earlier than he had expected, he had heard about this wall that had over the years gathered so much gum that it had become a tourist attraction. He had a crazy stupid desire to see this and add his own gum to the wall. 

At breakfast, he had told Lana and Julie about it. Tim was excited. Julie was intrigued and Lana had been just disgusted by the idea. Tim had begged (he didn’t beg) her to go but she wanted nothing to do with it or the outing. Julie had jumped at the chance though. That was his Jules, always up for adventure. He’d gotten a picture of her pretending to lick the wall and they had both dissolved into fits of laughter, he’d felt carefree and relaxed, in spite of the people asking for his autograph (he would never get used to that). He felt light when she was around. 

She had gone back to Chicago and life had gone back to normal with him and Lana. He did miss her more after that visit. It didn’t happen much that he actually got to see Julie so this, them being back in Dillon was completely different from before. Their friendship was so different now. 

He pushed off the wall and stalked closer to her. She stood stock still in the center of the living room, her eyes wide and her hand clutching a book tight to her chest. Tim wasn’t even sure she knew she had it in her hand. 

“Did you order dinner?” he asked stopping directly in front of her. He was sure she had, it had been why she’d not joined him in the shower. At least, part of the reason.

He had missed her in the shower. He missed the feel of her skin under his fingertips and the touch of her lithe dancer's body against his. He’d never given a thought to the way Julie would look and feel under him. His mind had always managed to keep everything about her mostly G rated. He knew she was pretty. God, how could he not? Tim Riggins saw beauty, that was never an issue. With Julie though, he saw Seven’s girl or Coach’s daughter, hell, he even saw her as Tyra’s best friend. Tim had never crossed that line, not with one of Tyra’s girls. Tyra would have had his balls in a jar. That blonde scared him, no matter how much he adored her. 

“Um…” Julie said, clearing her throat as she nodded. “Yeah, I, uh…” She licked her lips, shaking her head. 

To Tim it looked like she was trying to clear a thought from her mind. It only made him smirk and step a little closer. His hands reached out for her, his fingers wrapping around her slender hips, pulling her into him. Tim wasn’t going to be able to resist touching her anymore. He could try, but unless she asked him not to, he saw no point to it. Now that he knew what she felt like, how she tasted and what she smelled like, he was never getting that little bit of will power back. He’d known it the second he gave in. It was lost to the world, never to be found again. Tim leaned in, his lips brushing over hers. Once, twice, three times before he gently nipped at her bottom lip, pulling her into a firm kiss. She exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized she was holding and dropped the book, her hands winding around his neck. He was thankful the book was paperback and not from an overly wordy author because it landed on his foot but he barely noticed it. 

His hands where just starting to wander when there was a loud rapping on her door. Tim pulled away, breathing deep and resting his head on Julie’s forehead. 

“That guy officially has the worst timing ever,” he grumbled, making Julie laugh. 

She pulled back, no doubt to get the door and kissed his nose, making him wrinkle it slightly. His reaction only made her laugh turn into a giggle. Tim liked the sound of her giggle. It was light and soft. It felt like a spring breeze washing over him. He was going to have to give her more reasons to laugh like that. 

“I’ll grab the plates and silverware,” he told her glancing back at her as she reached for the door. She glanced back at him and nodded before she opened the door. Tim disappeared into the kitchen to grab two of each; plates, forks, napkins and cold bottles of water. When he returned from the kitchen, Julie was setting the huge bag of food on the table and he smiled. “It looks like you ordered enough to feed the entire football team,” he told her setting the plates down on the coffee table, sliding one over to her with her fork, napkin and bottle of water and keeping the other for himself. 

“No, just you,” she said glancing up at him, her eyes held a little bit of mirth, her lips quirked in a small half smile. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he said waving his hand. “I know I eat a lot.” Tim had always had a healthy appetite. He was an active person. He rarely sat still, unless he was asleep. Food was fuel. Tim needed fuel. 

“No Tim, you don’t just eat a lot, you inhale, decimate and devour your plate. It’s a wonder you actually taste your food.” She said with a laugh. She reached into the bag and pulled out the boxes of take out and the chopsticks, setting them down and removing the bag from the table. “If you’re still hungry after you finish what I got you, you’re welcome to try mine,” she told him. 

Tim pulled a face and shook his head. “Mmmm! Rubbery chunks of flavorless nothing. Pass,” he said nudging her with his elbow. He loved giving her a hard time for the way she ate. He could not for the life of him understand how, after growing up in Texas of all places, with a family like hers, she had become a vegetarian. It was almost beyond comprehension. But, Tim supposed, as long as she allowed him what he wanted to eat and didn’t try to push her eating beliefs on him, who was he to chastise her (at least seriously)?

Julie opened the box of her food and forked a bunch of the tofu mixture onto her plate before doing the same with the white rice. She set the boxes of food back on the coffee table before she even acknowledged his comment, by that time, he has already filled his plate with his part of their dinner as well. 

“How could you possibly know it's flavorless?” she asked stabbing him softly with a fork. “Tofu happens to take on the flavors of the food it's cooked with. It’s very good, and good for you.” She said popping a piece into her mouth and chewing happily. 

“Yuck,” Tim said, expressing in just one word how he felt about the idea of Tofu anywhere near his dinner. “No thanks, Jules. It’s all yours.” he conceded. He could get behind a lot of what she ate. Tim liked a variety of food. He wasn’t just a meat and potatoes guy, but tofu he just couldn’t do. That and the fake meats and cheeses. It was just wrong to eat fake meat. If you asked him (which no one did but he was more than willing to voice his opinion on) eating fake meat was worse than eating real meat. What did those fake turkeys ever do to anyone? 

“Fine, I’ll have leftovers I can take to work,” she said sitting back on her couch. “So,” she said reaching behind her head for the remote, “movie?” she asked waving the remote at him. 

Tim grabbed his water and sat back with her. “Sure,” he said dropping the bottle next to him before digging into his plate. They had started the movie Rebecca a few nights ago. How she had talked him into it, Tim still wasn’t sure, but what baffled him most was that he had been the one watching the movie, captured by the story and loving the characters while she had fallen asleep in his lap, snoring softly.

Julie Taylor had a strange power over him. One no one had ever had before. She could get him out of his comfort zone more effectively than anyone ever had before. He didn’t know what it was about her, but for the life of him he could not deny her anything. She pushed him, drove him to be better. She challenged him, made him want to try harder. She always had. 

She pushed play on the movie and set the remote down between them as the movie started over. She’d apparently decided to watch it from the beginning instead of from when she had possibly fallen asleep. He glanced over at her, smiling happily before reaching his fork over, and stabbing a piece of her tofu. She made a squeaky noise that he made a mental note to attempt to get out of her again and popped the food (if you could call it that) into his mouth and chewed. 

He looked over at her as he swallowed the food. She was watching him, waiting for a reaction. “Yup,” he said going back to his own food, focusing on the movie, “yuck.” He chuckled, making her shake her head. The tofu hadn’t really had any flavor and it was kind of mushy chewy. Not his cup a tea, but if she liked it, who was he to judge? 

They ate their dinner and watched the movie until they’d both had their fill. Tim had done the dishes while Julie watched a part he had already seen before he came back into the living room and settled down with her on the couch, this time with his arm around her, pulling her into his side. 

Tim didn’t make it home that night. Instead they had dragged their sleep deprived bodies to her bed and passed out the second their heads hit the pillow. As it happened, it was a good thing that Tim had stayed the night. They had forgotten to call Coach T about Julie’s car which meant Tim had to give her a ride to school. That resulted in him being slightly late to his own job and having to explain what happened to a rather mystified Eric Taylor. 

Eric knew Julie and he were friends, the whole world knew it. Eric also knew that the two of them spent many evenings together having dinner and just being in each others presence. Tim didn’t get the feeling Eric was bothered by the news that Tim had stayed over at Julie’s, which was a relief to him. Part of him, the part that had had Coach T as a coach when he was teenager feared that he would lose his mind when he heard. It was weird, Tim was 28 years old, he’d played in the NFL, been married and divorced but telling Eric Taylor that he had crashed (because that had been what it had been at the time) at his daughter's place, was perhaps more scary than anything else he had ever done. 

He had an overwhelming fear of trying to explain what he and Julie were turning into. Whatever the hell that was. He hadn’t talked to her about it. She hadn’t brought it up and he hadn’t wanted to ask. It was one time, but he doubted it would stay that way. His stop at the drugstore outside of Dillon was hopeful and a little presumptuous but he didn’t want to be caught without if it turned out what happened between them was more than a one time thing.


	10. Wake Up Call

Ch10 - Wake Up Call

 

Julie stood in the stands of Herrmann field watching the Lions and the Panthers go back and forth. The teams were well matched, but the Panthers had home field advantage on top of having her father and Tim has their coaches. She showed her support for the Lions, they were after all the school she was teaching at, but she was a Panther. It was in her blood to root for West Dillon. She was still getting used to calling it that, but it made it easier that she taught at East Dillon. This was a big game. The winner of this game would be going to State. Julie only cared because she wanted to see Tim get a new ring his first year as a coach. 

She could see Tim and her father yelling at the players from the sidelines. Tim ran the length of the field as if he were the one with the ball. He looked so alive out on the field. He was so happy in his element. She couldn’t stop smiling. Her eyes rarely left him. One in awhile, when the game got interesting or she lost track of the ball she would take her eyes away from him and find it again, but he was who she was really watching. 

She was never able to pay full attention to a game when Tim was in it. She’d always been focused on him. Even when she was watching on TV she knew where he was. His number, 33, always stuck out to her. It was a glaring beacon in the dead of night, her eyes were inextricably drawn to. Now it was worse. 

“They sure to get into the game, don’t they?” Her mom’s voice was loud, shouting over the din of the crowd so that she could be heard. 

“Who?” Julie asked not thinking. Her eyes were focused on Tim, she hadn’t even spared her mother a glance. She had no reason to. She didn’t need to look at her mom to talk to her. 

“Your father,” Tami said, “and Tim.” 

At his name, Julie glanced over at her mom. Julie’s eyes met Tami’s for a second before they slid back over to where Tim was on the field. They didn’t stay there though. She did a double take and focused on her mother. Tami’s face was impassive, but her eyes had a knowing light to them, one Julie knew all too well. 

“Yes, they do,” she said with a shrug. She hadn’t really but thinking about how into the game Tim and her father were. More just how energetic Tim was out there. 

“He seems happy,” her mother said, leaning closer to her so that she didn’t need to shout. 

“Dad? Why wouldn’t he be happy?” Julie asked, her eyes going back to the game. 

She couldn’t hear what Tim was saying, but with the way he was clapping and shouting, she knew he was trying to motivate one of the players on the field. Tim was good at getting under people's skin, but it came in handy when he was trying to get some to do something. It must have paid off because Tim started jumping, happily shouting encouragement as number ten ran for the end zone. 

“I was talking about Tim,” she said softly in Julie’s ear. 

Julie looked back at her mom, her eyes searching her. “He does seem to be in better spirits,” she agreed. 

“So do you,” Tami said, focusing on the game again. Her mother said nothing else.

Leave it to Tami Taylor to say or do something so simple and innocuous that to anyone else it wouldn’t mean anything, but to Julie it spoke volumes. When she’d come back to Dillon, when she’d decided to stay, she had asked Tim if he was alright. His answer had been one she understood better than anyone. He hadn’t known if he would ever be alright. Looking at him now, watching him on the field, chasing after his players, Julie was sure he would be alright. 

At the time, she hadn’t been sure she would be alright either. Being back in Dillon had depressed her. it had shown her just how far she hadn’t gotten in life. At least, she had thought that was what it had shown her. She couldn’t have been more wrong. 

She thought the life she had with Matt in Chicago had been an escape from the life that she had been destined to while living in Dillon, but the fact was, Matt was the thing that had held her back. being back in Dillon, spending her days working at the high school and her nights with Tim, showed her that what she had thought she never wanted was in fact exactly what she wanted. Only, not with Matt. She wanted that with Tim. She wanted a life with this man. He wasn’t the same boy he had been when she had first met him. He wasn’t the same boy that crashed on her couch, hooked up porn to her tv and drank all the time. He wasn’t the same boy that treated women like crap and walked all over Tyra. He was the same boy that had saved her from Riley and from the tornado. He was the same boy whose silence on the phone was not awkward, but comforting. He was the boy that had dragged her all over Seattle to see the sights. He was the boy she had accidently fallen in love with over the years. 

“I am happy,” she told her mother, her arm hooking into Tami’s. Julie rested her head on her mom’s shoulder and sighed. Her eyes never once left Tim. 

“He makes you happy,” her mother said quietly. “He always has.” 

Julie started, shocked by what her mother had said. “What do you mean?” she asked looking up at her mom. She was only just starting to develop feelings for Tim. At least she was only starting to understand the feelings that had always been there. She was sure they always had. 

“Jules,” her mom said softly. “You were more broken up about Tim not returning your calls than you were when you and Matt called it quits for the second time.”

She sighed softly. She had been very hurt by his ignoring her. No one really understood it, even Matt had said it was just Riggins. There was nothing just about Tim. There wasn’t. Not having him in her life had made her feel empty. It had felt like something had been carved out of her (a Tim Riggins shaped hole, perhaps?) and she felt lost and alone. It wasn’t a feeling Julie had been used to feeling. Even when Matt was there, Julie was on her own. No one had ever understood or listened to her the way Tim had. He didn’t often actually say anything, he was just there for her when she needed someone. She’d always known she could count on him. 

“I’m glad to have him back,” she said honestly. They’d talked about why she’d stayed. Julie had told her mom that Tim had needed her, but she doubted she would stay long. That had been three months ago. Julie had no plans to leave anymore. She had actually unpacked her entire apartment. She wasn’t leaving and Tim was the reason for that. “I missed him.” She wasn’t afraid to admit it to her mother. If her mother had seen how hurt she’d been when Tim stopped talking to her, she would know Julie had missed him. 

“You know he used to ask about you, before you came back.” Tami said, pulling Julie down to sit on the bleachers. “He wasn’t here much before you came back, but he asked about you. How you were, what you were doing. Things like that.” 

This bit of information shocked Julie. She hadn’t really thought Tim had bothered to think about her after he had ignored her for the better part of a year. It had felt like an eternity to her. She missed his voice, his laugh, the way he’d said her name. Looking back on everything, maybe she had been in love with him back then. She was just too blind to see it. Neither of them had been in a place where they could do anything about it, even if she had figured it out earlier. 

Tim had been so completely in love with Lana, that Julie telling him she loved him would have just made him laugh at her. She wasn’t entirely sure her admitting it now wouldn’t cause the same reaction. It hadn’t been that long since they’d given into their attraction for each other. They spent more time indoors now, either at his house or her apartment. They cooked together, watched TV or movies. Sometimes Julie would sit on the couch and read to him. Those were her favorite nights. The nights when her legs rested in his lap and the only sounds in the house were his breathing and her voice. She read Kafka, Faulkner, Melville, Austin, Koontz, King and so many more. Julie had shown Tim literature. She’d mixed modern and classic as well as some trashy romance novels. He’d seemed to be more fascinated in those and the dirty parts (Julie was unable to stop her eye roll when he told her that) the most. It was not shocking to her, but she did love that he would let her read to him. 

“I’m not going to ask what you two are to each other,” her mom said, a smile on her face. “Just know that whatever it is, whatever it becomes, I’m on your side.” 

Julie wrapped her arms around her mom, hugging her tightly. She hadn’t really thought that she would care about what her parents thought, but having her mom on her side for this, whatever it was with Tim was important to her. “This daddy will be as accepting?” She asked pulling back to look at her mom. 

Tami’s face remained passive, her mouth opening to answer, but her words were drowned out by the crowd. They were all collectively screaming and jumping around. Julie looked over to see the team all leaping into the air. The Panthers were going to state, that she could see from the reaction of the crowd. 

Tami grabbed Julie’s hand and pulled her down the steps of the bleachers, Gracie Bell pulling up the rear and started running to the coaches. Julie knew she should stop and congratulate her father and indeed that had been where her mother was taking them but she’d broken off from her mom and sister. Instead, Julie ran right past her father, her long blonde hair blowing behind her as she moved, and ran straight into Tim’s arms. 

Julie’s arms wrapped around his neck and she pulled herself into him. His arms wrapped around her waist and suddenly her body was lifted into the air, the whole world spinning for a second before her feet hit the ground again. Tim’s lips were on hers in a second, kissing the breath out of her. This was the first time they’d kissed in a public setting but Julie figured, Tim had always been a go big or go home person, so why not announce whatever they were in front of the entire town and her parents. 

Julie didn’t care though. She melted into his kiss, her body molding into him. The whole world melted away under his kiss. She didn’t hear the crowd or her parents. She didn’t feel her sister tugging on her shirt. Nothing existed outside of the bubble that was her and Tim. Nothing mattered. She kissed him like there was no one else standing on that field. She kissed him as if her very life depended on it. Tim was her life force and without him, she would cease to exist. 

******

Tim pulled back from the kiss only when he knew they needed to breath. He could hear the crowd screaming and shouting. He felt the thumps on his back, but they didn’t phase him. He cared about nothing other than the girl in his arms. 

He knew she was in the stands, he’d looked for her at half time, but he hadn’t been able to actually get to her because he’d been needed in the locker room. This, having her in his arms had been all he really wanted once he’d seen her in the crowd. Tim had been right about his willpower, but he’d been good about it in public. The two of them hadn’t defined what they were so while they were out, Tim kept his distance, he kept his hands to himself. 

He kind of hated it, but he figured if Julie had wanted people to see, she would have told him or made the effort to be closer when out. He hated that whatever this was didn’t have a label. He wanted a label with her. He wanted her to be his and him to be hers. He found himself wanting a life with her. A life he had never thought he would have again. They could take it slow, feel it out, but what was the point?

They’d known each other for so long, knew more about each other than anyone else, understood and accepted each other. Tim didn’t see the point of dancing around this, but he had been worried that maybe Julie didn’t want this. 

A relationship with Tim came with a stigma in this town. He knew it did. It had for Tyra and for Lyla both. It had destroyed his friendship with Lyla. He and Tyra had weathered many storms, their friendship was still in tact but it wasn’t as strong as it used to be. He didn’t want that to happen to him and Julie. She was so much more than what even Lyla had meant to him. Julie was his sun and moon, if he was being honest with himself (he was starting to sound like those books Julie read, but he didn’t care). 

Tim pulled away from the kiss, those three little words on the tip of his tongue. He wanted so badly to tell her how he felt. He wanted to profess his love (Tim didn’t profess anything, he really was becoming a sap because of her) to her. Hell, he wanted the whole damn town to know that he loved her. 

“I was starting to think you were never going to come up for air,” the deep southern drawl said, startling Tim out of his moment with Julie. 

He glanced up to see Coach T, her father, staring at the both of them, his arms folded over his chest. Tami’s hand grabbed Eric’s arm, pulling him away from them, but Eric resisted. “Locker room, now Riggins.” Coach barked before letting Mr. T pull him away. 

“Why do I suddenly feel 16 again?” Tim said with a sigh. His forehead rested on Julie’s and he focused on her. 

“Because my father is trying to intimidate you,” she said pulling back to look at him. 

Her hands slid through his hair making him close his eyes. “Does he have a reason to intimidate me, Jules?” Tim asked, the words leaving his lips before he could think. It was too late to do anything about them now. It wasn’t like he could get them back. 

He’d been avoiding this topic, it was the girl’s job to get mushy and ask about where they were going. Tim wasn’t supposed to ask if there was a more to them, but honestly he couldn’t help it. He was tired of wasted breath and feeling lost. Julie was the light that lead him home. She was his home. He’d never felt so at peace in his life until he was with her. He wanted more. He wanted her. All of her. Everything.   
“Maybe?” she said softly. 

He almost missed her words but they gave him hope. Maybe was better than no. It wasn’t as good as yes, but it was enough, for that moment. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her lips, this time keeping it chaste. Pulling away from her was much more difficult than he had expected it to be. It was always hard, but that maybe had locked his knees up. He wanted to stay there and explore that maybe, instead he took a step back and sighed. “If your father doesn’t kill me, I want to talk about this when I get back.” 

Julie nodded, her eyes big and wide. He recognized the scared look on her face. He was feeling similar. He turned and walked away from her, leaving her in the middle of the field. He had done that a few times recently, just walked away, leaving her in the middle of Herrmann field. He should probably stop doing that. 

He walked slowly down the hall to the locker room that held his doom. Okay, he was being melodramatic, he knew he was, but Coach T was terrifying. He was 16 years old again, being dragged out of his coach’s house because of some possible slight he had caused Julie. Only this wasn’t a slight. Tim was serious about this. He was serious about Julie. 

“Sit,” came the voice of the one man Tim Riggins was actually scared of. This man was his boss, but beyond that he was only man he saw as a father figure. He used to think Julie could be like his little sister, but that was never how he actually saw her. He’d always seen her as his friend, someone he wanted to keep safe and always have around. He’d failed on both fronts before but his desire to keep her safe had never changed, even if the way he saw he had. 

Tim took the seat on the bench in front of the lockers. They weren’t even in their offices. Coach was going to do this in the middle of the locker room. He was thankful everyone else had gone home already. That would make his death a little less painful. 

“What was that out there?” Eric asked, his stance firm and wide, his arms crossed over his chest. Tim recognized the intimidation technique. He’s seen Coach use it on their players. Hell, he’d been on the receiving end more than a few times. 

“A kiss,” he told him, reverting back to his smart mouthed 16 year old self. 

“I could see that, Riggins,” he said, his drawl getting a little thicker as he spoke. “What I want to know was why?” 

“Wanted to?” he supplied, defiantly. He wasn’t winning any points with the way he was behaving, he knew that. He could see the vein in Eric’s head start to protrude. It was a sure sign that he was angry. He’d seen it many times, been on the receiving end more than once. “Look,” Tim said standing up, reason was going to need to be used with this one. Tim was 28 years old, Julie 27, they didn’t need Coach’s blessing but he was sure that Julie would like it. 

“No you listen to me,” Eric said moving closer to Tim. There was only a slight height difference, but under the dangerous glare of this man Tim felt like he was three feet tall standing in front of a giant. “If you hurt her, Tim, there will be no safe place for you to hide.” he said poking Tim in the chest. “I saw how much your pushing her away the last time hurt her, I’m not going to allow that to happen again Riggins.” 

Tim frowned at Eric, unsure what he was talking about. Julie hadn’t said anything about the nearly two years they’d sort of (not so sort of) been on the outs. It had been Tim’s fault. Julie had been amazing, trying to get him to open up or stay open but Tim had refused. “That’s not… That wasn’t….” Tim’s eyes fell to the floor and he felt something akin to a lead balloon settle in his stomach. “That wasn’t because of her, Coach. That was my own issues and I’ve worked them out.” He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open, showing Eric the one year coin and the picture that no one beside him knew he carried. “She helped me work them out.” Tim wasn’t ashamed of how Julie, or rather the memory of her had been the thing that got him through the days he wanted to drown himself in a fifth. 

Eric pursed his lips, his hands reaching out to take the picture from Tim. “Does she know?” he asked glancing up at him, handing the picture back. 

Tim shook his head. He put the photo and the coin back in his wallet, and slid it back into his back pocket. He couldn’t speak his voice was tight with an emotion that he couldn’t explain. He had no idea how to tell Julie that she had saved his life. He didn’t know how to tell her he was where was because of her. 

“Son,” the coach said, his hand landing firmly on Tim’s shoulder. “Do not forget to let her know,” he said firmly. “You go out there and you tell her. You tell her everything, Julie deserves to know how you feel. She deserves the very best and if she thinks you’re the very best than by golly you show her that you are.”

Tim looked up at his coach, his boss, the father of the girl he loves and nodded. “Thank you sir,” he said honestly shocked that Eric was telling him this. He didn’t know if Julie thought he was the best, but he hoped she at least he was passable. 

“I meant what I said Tim, if you hurt her, you’re a dead man. That’s my little girl out there waiting for you. I have a shot gun and I never miss, Riggins. Remember that.”

Tim nodded and turned to leave but the hand tightened on his shoulder stopping him from moving. He looked back at coach, his eyebrow cocking in confusion. “Shower, she deserves that too,” he said patting him on the back and walking away.


	11. Lead Me Home

Ch 11 - Lead Me Home

Failure - Breaking Benjamin   
Life will come our way,  
It has only just begun.  
The world will die alone  
The frail will fall below.

Time will take our place.  
We return it back to one  
The calm before the cold,  
The long and lonely road.

Look for the light that leads me home.

Tired of feeling lost, tired of letting go.  
Tear the whole world down, tear the whole world down.

 

“He’s a good man, daddy,” Julie said softly. She watched him, wondering what was going through his head. He had walked out of the locker room without Tim. Which, if Julie was being honest had scared her. They joked about her Dad’s anger, about his willingness to kill her boyfriends (not that that was what Tim was), but she had a terrible vision that that was exactly what had happened to Tim. 

“I know he is, Julie. He’s taking a shower and getting cleaned up. I figured you’d prefer that over the sweat and grass smell.” 

Julie smiled a little more brightly at that. “You would assume correct,” she told him. She didn’t mind the way Tim smelled when he got home from work, but she did like the way he smelled fresh out of a shower much more. 

“You sure you know what you’re doing here, Jules?” Her dad asked, his stare boring a hole into her soul. She could almost feel the burn.

“No,” she said honestly. She didn’t know what they were doing; she had no idea what they even were anymore. “Did you? When you started a new relationship?” she countered. Anyone that said they did was lying, in her opinion.

The fact was, relationships, of any kind, were a crap shoot. They could either hit or miss. Her friendship with Lyla had missed. Her friendship with Tim had hit. She hoped that maybe this, whatever it was, would also hit.

“”No,” he chuckled, “but to be fair, I wasn’t getting involved with someone like Tim Riggins.” He said simply. “That’s a lot of baggage, Jules. Are you ready for that?”

Julie sighed. She was sure that would be a common question from people now that it was out there that there was something more to them. “We all have baggage, dad.” She said with a shrug. “I know what his is.” She knew better than anyone, in fact. His past didn’t bother her. Not anymore. It had when she was younger. When she was naïve and judgmental; before she’d gotten to know him, she had judged. Like the town, she had been wrong about Tim Riggins.  
“I trust you,” he said pulling her into a hug.

His trust in her meant the world to her. She hadn’t realized just how scared she was about her parents’ acceptance of this thing with Tim until her mother had broached the subject. It struck a chord within her, one she hadn’t really thought to focus on. The approval of her parents was important to her. She needed them to be okay with the guy she loved. She knew they liked him. They had always shown faith in Tim when others wrote him off. Her father had trusted him enough to let him live on the couch in a house with his teenage daughter. She knew they trusted and respected Tim, but that didn’t need to transfer into accepting a relationship of some kind between Julie and him.

“Thanks, daddy,” she said, wrapping her arms around him. She didn’t always show the kind of affection she should to her parents. She could be hard on them. They were everything that she had been trying to escape when she was younger. Now though, now she was starting to realize that maybe they were everything she wanted. The only reason she had balked the way she had was because she hadn’t had the right person with her.

She was sure Tim was the right person. He made her feel. He’d always made her feel. Even when the rest of the world made her numb, Tim had made her feel. It was startling all the revelations she was having about her friendship with this boy. They hadn’t had a chance to physically be in each other’s presence for long periods of time since high school and back then, Julie had had her own issues to deal with. Tim Riggins didn’t rate at the time. It wasn’t until right before he left for college that she and him reached an understanding in the way of a friendship.  
She had handed him her cell number and told him to call if he needed something though the idea that Tim Riggins would call her was laughable. They’d been friendly, they’d talked, but she was Tyra’s friend and he was Tyra’s ex and so they had kept their distance. Their friendship was never one that was cultivated and grown. They talked, when they were in each other’s presence but never went out of their way to be near each other. It was mostly if they ended up at a party together.

The first time he had called her, she had thought it was an accident; he’d been a little drunk and a lot more talkative than she’d ever known him to be. She had been on her way to a night class than she had ended up missing. He talked and she listened. It was a rare time that Tim Riggins said more than a few one syllable words. It had been that day that everything changed, actually changed.  
When she’d gotten off the phone, she was sure she’d never hear from him again, but he called a week later, this time sober and it was her time to talk. She had been having issues with a teacher and she ranted. On and on she went, talking his ear off till her phone screamed low battery at her.   
He’d called a week later and so it had gone. Once a week every week for almost a decade she had gotten a call from Tim. She looked forward to those calls and then suddenly it was gone. Her mom was right. She had been more broken up about losing Tim’s contact than she had been about Matt.

“I’ll see you later Jules,” came her dad’s voice and she blinked, pulling back from the hug.  
“I love you, daddy,” she said kissing him on the cheek. “Thank you,” she told him again. She was so glad that he was accepting of this; this with Tim, this, whatever it was. She and Tim needed to talk about it. She couldn’t put it off anymore.

Her father walked away, leaving Julie standing in the middle of the field. There was trash strewn all over from the game, but the cleaners hadn’t shown up to change that yet. It was surreal to her, standing there. She’d been in that same exact spot, not more than three months ago. She’d been contemplating leaving again, but now she couldn’t imagine it. Not without Tim. Three months and her entire world had changed. Just the addition of one person, physically present in her life had changed everything. It was startling how much Tim affected her life, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Julie sighed softly, a smile on her lips. She was happy. Actually happy! She tried to think back to the last time she was truly happy with her life and came up blank. It really had been that long. Tim made her happy though. Whatever they were doing, where ever they were going, it made her happy.

Arms, firm and strong wrapped around her midsection and she found herself pulled into a firm chest. The soft smile on her face grew as his lips pressed a kiss to the crook of her neck. Her hands held his and she sighed happily. “You smell good,” she told him, echoing his words from a few days ago. 

He hummed softly, sucking at the skin on her neck, “Not as good as you,” he said, his voice thick and deep. 

It sent a shiver down her spine, her body heating at his touches. The way he spoke to her, the way he held her, it was amazing how right it all felt. Standing on the field, where really everything had began, was so perfect. 

****  
Tim’s lips slid over the soft skin of Julie’s neck, sucking at the skin, her moan flowing through his body. He hadn’t wanted to let her go on the field and the time he spent in the shower had been too much for him. Getting his hands on her had been the only thing on his mind. It was all that mattered to him. 

He’d washed up quickly, not sparing a second on wasted time. All he did was wash himself, body and hair and get the hell out of the water. There were times when he wanted to spend time in the hot warmed of the water, relaxing his knee, which was killing him, but it wasn’t what he wanted at that moment. 

She had said maybe. Maybe there was a reason for his death warrant. Maybe meant there was a possibility that she wanted more to this than what they had. Maybe meant she’d thought about it or that she was willing to entertain this possibility. 

“Tell me about that maybe you gave me, before I went into the locker room,” he said, his lips always against her ear. They should leave, head someone that wasn’t the middle of the high school football field but that meant letting her go and he’d already done that too many times in his life. He wasn’t about to do it now. Not until he knew that he wouldn’t lose her again. 

He felt her intake of breath more than he heard it, but the rest of air that passed through her lips, gave him pause. Maybe she didn’t want this? Coach had told him to tell her, who better to know than him, right? Maybe Julie had said something to her parents about them? But no, Coach T’s reaction to the kiss in the middle of the field had answered that question. 

Julie turned in his arms, her arms wrapping around his neck. Her fingers slid into his hair, twirling circles around the strands. His eyes sliding closed at the feel, a soft little moan reverberating from his throat. It was a sound that Tim wasn’t used to hearing from himself, but the way this girl made him field was nothing like he’d ever experienced before. “How about we head home and we can talk about that there?” she offered, a smirk on her lips. 

“You’re going to make me wait?” he asked, opening his eyes to look at her. 

Her hands ran down his chest, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. She shook her head, “Not making you wait, just…” she raised up on her tip toes and pressed her lips to his. Her hands moved back up to his neck, pulling him down to her height and kissing him firmly. “I just want you to take me home.”

“Your place or mine?” Tim asked against her lips. He wasn’t going to let this go, he needed to know what they were doing. If this was just a physical thing, he wasn’t sure he would handle that. Not after the conversation with her father. He needed to tell her about the picture and how she helped him, without her being there. He would take her wherever she was comfortable so that they could talk, it didn’t matter. 

“Yours,” she said pulling back to look at him. 

Tim let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. He had actually been worried that she was going make him take her home and dismiss him. It was a foolish fear, Tim knew that, but it was Julie. She could and should do better than him. For god sake she had had Matt. She was slumming it with him after Matt. 

Tim didn’t doubt himself with a girl, he never did, but this was Julie Taylor. She was that untouchable girl that Tim had put on a pedestal years ago. She was the person in his life that mattered above everyone else. Sometimes she was even above Billy when it came to importance. He loved his brother, but his brother brought him down when Julie lifted him up. 

“I can do that,” he said turning to walk off the field with her, his arm looped around her neck. They hadn’t come together, but she had told him earlier in the week that she would go with her mom so he would have to take her home. He’d made sure to bring his bike again. His truck was great and he loved it, but he much preferred having her pressed against him, her arms wrapped around his midsection. Sure, the fall night was chilly but that just meant a fire in his fireplace and him and Julie curled up in each other staying warm. He loved the idea. 

Julie’s arm slid around Tim’s waist as the walked off the field, together this time. Tim walked her to the bike. Her eyes light up when she spotted it. Tim had a feeling she liked the idea of of the bike for the same reason, but perhaps he was simply projecting. 

The both got on the bike; helmets on, her body pressed tightly to his, her hands resting palms flat on his chest, and drove for his home. He lived on the outskirts of Dillon, choosing the large property far enough away from the town of naysayers and coat tail riders as he could while still being part of the town. He loved Dillon, but he didn’t always love the way they saw him. He was just thankful none of the Taylors’ saw him that way. 

They reached his house and pulled into the garage before he shut the bike off and kicked the stand down and removed his helmet. He killed the motor and waited for her to get off the bike first but she didn’t move. She simply held onto him tighter. His fingers threaded into hers before pulling her hand to his lips and kisses her knuckles. 

“We’re home, Jules,” he said softly. He knew she knew where they were, but the fact that she hadn’t moved was a bit concerning. 

“I know,” came her voice. It was muffled in the helmet and against his back. “You’re warm. Can’t move.”

Tim chuckled softly, his hands prying her arms from his body. “Then,” he said dismounting from the bike, “I’ll carry you,” he told her. He pulled the helmet from her head, her hair flying in ever direction. He loved her hair and how unruly it could be. 

“No, Tim! You don’t,” Julie said moving to get off the bike herself. It was too late though, Tim had scooped her up into his arms effortlessly. 

Tim paused for a second to press his lips to hers before he was walking into his house with her in her arms. He had a few difficulties with the door and juggling her, but that wasn’t a big deal. He got them into the house with relative ease and down the hall to his room. “I’ll get a fire going and make some coffee or cocoa, which ever you like and we can warm you up, alright?” he said walking into the room with her. 

Julie’s arms wrapped around his neck, holding herself too, even when he sent her down, she wouldn’t let him go. “I have a better way to warm up,” she told him a grin playing at her lips. 

“Oh yeah?” He returned her smirk before leaning down to capture her lips with his. He would gladly warm her up other ways. 

“Too bad you already took a shower.”

Tim groaned against her lips. He’d been trying to get her into the shower with him for the past week. He would get her in the shower. “I could take another,” he said, his lips leaving hers, trailing down her throat over her clavicle and into the valley between her breasts that her v-neck shirt showcased perfectly. Tim sucked the skin between his lips, marking her as his. She wasn’t, not really, but he wanted her to be. He didn’t want to let her go. 

“Don’t want to wait,” she told him, her hands pulling at his shirt, bunching it up in her hands as though she was wadding up a piece of paper. She pulled it over his head making him break his contact with her skin. He hated it, but the little red marks on her skin made it worth it. 

Tim let the shirt be pulled from his body before he slid down the length of her torso. His hands pulled up her shirt, revealing her flat stomach. “I will get you in the shower, Jules,” he told her, his words spreading warm air across her abdomen. “I will,” It had been kind of a challenge lately, getting her to join him in the shower, but he was good at biding his time. 

Julie hummed, her stomach flexing in anticipation. Tim’s tongue swirled around her belly button before dipping into the small crevasse. Her hums turned into a moan and her fingers slid through Tim’s hair. He couldn’t help but smirk against her skin. He loved the way she responded to him. She was fast becoming his weak spot (though truth be told she probably always was, he just didn’t realize it). He gave into her whims and desires at the drop of her pouty bottom lip. He couldn’t help it. She was perfection and she knew how to use what she had to her advantage. 

Tim pushed her shirt up, Julie raised her arms letting him remove the garment from her body. If he had his way she would never wear clothing. She was too perfect to cover up, but if he did that, he would never want her to leave the house. Tim had a bit of a possessive streak. He had this girl and he wanted to keep her, all to himself. 

The shirt was tossed to the side, landing, lord only knows. They would find it later, Tim wasn’t worried. It wasn’t like he needed it. He held himself above her, his hands resting on either side of her head. His hair hung down like a curtain, hiding them and he smiled. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. He could see now what his younger self had tried and failed to be blind to. He had been a fool all those years not to see what she was to him. All it had taken was a few months of being in her constant presence and Tim fell hard for the ever mysterious Julie Taylor. 

Her legs wrapped around his waist, doing her best to pull him down to her, a small growl escaping her lips. She didn’t like the gap between them and he knew it. It was one thing he had learned about her. She didn’t like space. She wanted his weight on her. Tim’s arms bent at the elbows, lowering himself to her, taking care to keep just a few centimeters of space between them. He wanted to touch her body, to feel it against his skin, but he loved to watch her get frustrated with him. 

Julie’s hands pushed on his shoulders, Tim relented, letting her roll them over. Tim’s back hit the cool sheets of his bed and Julie sat up on his lap her hair fanning out over her, covering her shoulders and down her breasts. She was a vision, one Tim was sure he would never get enough of. 

Tim’s hands slid over her body, up the sides of her waist, around the curve of her hips. His fingers memorized the feel of her skin; soft, smooth and delicate. His eyes stay trained solely on the girl on top of him. She was a thing of beauty, blonde and pale, perfection in action. His fingers reached up, flicking her hair over her shoulders. He loved her hair but it was obstructing his view. His fingers slid back down, over the swell of her breasts as he sat up. His fingers slipped around her back, tracing the edge of her bra, unhooking it when he reached the ends. Slowly, almost agonizingly slowly, Tim peeled the bra from her body, revealing her beautiful breasts to him. His hands cupped them, palming them, they were the perfect size. 

Julie’s head fell back, moaning softly. Her shift on his lap; the arch of her back pushed her breasts up into his hands more, allowing him to lean down and capture a nipple between his lips. His hands moved around her back, palms flat against the skin, pulling her into him more. 

She moved against him, her hips rolling and grinding down against him. Tim grunted and moaned against her, his teeth nipping and tugging at her nipple. Her own small hands slid over his body, her nails raking over the firm flesh of his chest and down his abdomen, to the buckle of his jeans. Her fingers were slow and delicate, the button sliding through the material, forced but giving no fight. His own hands went to the button on her pants that matched his own, copying her movements. Forcing the button open. Tim’s fingers played with the zipper, taking it down before slipping between the fabric and her skin. Her hips push against his fingers, his name a moan from her lips. She loves to say his when their like this and Tim loves to hear it. He loves the way it sounds on her beautiful voice. 

His hands moved around her hips and over her ass, pulling the denim down. Julie lifted herself off his lap, letting him take the fabric down to her knees before standing from the bed and turning the around. Her back hit the soft lush sheets, Tim’s body moved down hers, his lips touched every bit of skin he could while removing her clothing. Tim dropped the clothing off the side of his bed and stood up to remove his own. He kicked them out of the way, his pile added to the pile that was Julie’s. 

Tim moved back up the bed his body covering or rather hovering over hers again. He looked down at her, taking her in. Her chest moved with her breathing, deep and labored, her bangs stuck to her forehead and her lips were kiss swollen in the most beautiful way. He bent to kiss her, taking her bottom lip between his, his hand reaching for the drawer of his bed side table. He pulled out a condom, the wrapper crinkling in his hand, the sound went unnoticed by the two. 

He pulled back from their kiss, sitting back on his haunches and bringing the wrapper to his lips. He tore the little package open with no effort at all and slid the condom down his length. Julie had decided to get on birth control, but he was willing to take chances and neither was she. 

She moved to sit up, her knees folding under her. Tim watched her movements, her body coming closer to his. She climbed into his lap, her hand wrapping around him to guide him into her with no trouble at all. His grunt and the roll of his eye to the back of his head were his indicators. She felt so fucking good. Being inside her was the best feeling in the world. 

His hands gripped her hips, pulling her against him, his own hips rocking against her. Julie’s hands wrapped around his neck, her forehead rested against his, her shallow breathy moans fanned out over his face. 

He couldn’t speak to explain how it all felt, being with this girl. She was amazing and perfect. She made him feel more than he’d ever felt in his life. Those three little moved stayed at the tip of his tongue, easily spoken but forcibly trapped between teeth. 

They moved his heated silence. The combination of their breathing and the sound of their skin moving against each other was the only sound in the room. The rushing of blood through his veins pounded in Tim’s ears, his body heating from the exertion of their movements. His release came quick, following her’s. 

Tim lay them down on the bed his body half covering hers, his arm holding his weight for a moment before he pulled from her, removing the condom and sliding back over to her body. Not touching her was not an option in Tim’s mind. He couldn’t pull away from her. 

Tim twisted on the bed, angling himself against her. He pulled her against him, his fingers tracing lines and designs into her back. He kissed her, lazily and soft. Telling her through his kiss that he loved her. He couldn’t say it out loud, not really. He was terrified of those three little words. The people he said them to vanished after a while. He didn’t know what he would do if he lost Julie. 

Julie’s hands were warm on his face, pulling him into the kiss more. She kept with his pace, kissing him the way he was kissing her. Tim was happy and content where they were. Labels were dangerous, but he needed to know what the maybe meant. He needed to know that this was more than just a physical reaction to each other. 

“Are you warmer now?” he asked, his smirk pressed against her lips. 

Julie chuckled softly, her head nodding, breaking the kiss. “Yes, you’re very good at warming me up.” she told him, her hands sliding down his body, over his back. “Very good.”

She kissed his nose and slid of the bed, leaving Tim alone. “Where are you going?” Tim asked, his eyebrow cocked in confusion. Julie vanished from the room, leaving only the image of her naked back side in Tim’s head. 

He sat up on his bed, kicking the covers down and reaching for the remotes to the gas fire place and the tv that hung above it. He turned on the fire, warming up his room. It was cool in there despite the added heat of their bodies. He then clicked the tv on. Highlights of their game against the Lions scrolled across the ticker but the actual sports segment showcasing their win would replay at some point and Tim couldn’t help but want to watch that. 

They’d won! They were going to state. He hadn’t been to a state game since his senior year. They’d lost the game and he’d left his cleats there, thinking he would never get back there again. He’d been back on that field, playing against the cowboys many times, but it was different. This was different. He wasn’t a player in high school leading his team to victory, he wasn’t a pro baller playing a team he had idolized all his life. He was an assistant coach and it had been through his efforts that they were going to state. He was on the other side of state this time. It felt strange but it was incredible. 

He settled against his side of the bed (yes, he had a side, Julie had claimed the left side as her own and he willingly gave it to her) and waited for her return. He had no idea where she’d gone, but she couldn’t have gone far, she was after all naked. 

****  
Julie walked through his house like she owned the place. She knew it as well as her own, though periodically she noticed new things in his home. Pictures she hadn’t remembered being there. They looked as though they’d been there since he moved in, but she couldn’t remember ever seeing them. She paused in front of a picture she’d only recently noticed. It was from her junior year. She remembered the night, but not the picture. She’d probably been pretty drunk. It had been a party at Tyra’s (were there any other kind?). The whole school at showed up and Julie had decided to go with it rather than fight it. In the picture she was sitting on Tim and Matt’s shoulders (one would think they would remember that, but nope). Tim had his arm around Matt, big grins on all three of their faces. She had asked Tim about the night but he hadn’t said anything more than a comment on how drunk they’d all been. She wasn’t sure he remembered that night either. 

She continued through his house, her hands dragging along the wall and other pictures as she went. She was on a mission, but that didn’t stop her from enjoying the freedom of moving through his house. He trusted her, she wasn’t a guest in his house. When she asked him to take her home, he offered his house as a home for her. It made her hopeful that this thing with them was something more.

She really needed to talk to him about it. She knew he wanted to talk about it, she should have just told him on the field. She had no reason not to, except she had every reason in the world not to. It was Tim Riggins, world class womanizer (he had been at least, she knew he wasn’t now, but it didn’t stop her fears.) She had her mom on her side and her dad too, shockingly. Which meant they saw the change in Tim as well. It still scared her. She saw him as the Tim that had grown up, that she had fallen in love with, but she also saw him as the boy from high school that helped Lyla cheat on her crippled boyfriend and treated Tyra like crap. 

He was not that same person, she was using it as an excuse to cut herself off from getting hurt. She knew what heartache was, but heartbreak was a whole new feeling. Matt had hurt her, Tim could destroy her. He had her completely in his clutches and she wasn’t even sure he knew it. She was his in ways she had never been anyones before. Even Matt hadn’t held her heart the way Tim did. 

She walked into the kitchen, flipping on the light and sighed heavily. She just needed to be honest with him. This was Tim, her best friend. She trusted him, despite how scared she was. Honesty was the best policy….unless you were part of a Maroon 5 song, then apparently it wasn’t. She shook her head and busied herself with making cocoa and getting a night snack for them. 

The tray was loaded with warm cocoa, fruits and veggies before she headed back, pushing her insecurities out of her head. This thing with Tim was whatever it was, but she was tired of not knowing. 

The walk back to his room was slightly more daunting and difficult than she had expected, but mostly because of all the uncertainty. He held her heart in the palm of his hand. One conversation could crush her. She could hear the tv and paused just outside his door, out of the line of sight and listened to the anchor talk about the impact having ex-Seahawks fullback Tim Riggins as assistant coach has had on the Dillon Panthers. It made her smile, big and bright. She was so proud of him. He had overcome so much in his life. It was the most amazing feeling, knowing that she got to see him beat all the odds. 

She walked in after the segment was over, the tray held in her hands. Tim was laid back on the pillows, his left arm stretched behind his head, his right hand resting on his chest. He smiled when he saw her, his eyes raking over her body. Julie felt a flush run from the bottoms of her feet to the top of her head under his gaze. Matt had never made her feel like that. 

“I was starting to think you weren’t coming back.” he said sitting up a little. He pulled the covers over, opening up her spot for her, inviting her in. 

“You have my clothing,” she told him with a shrug, “where would I go?” She set the tray down on the bed and climbed up into the sheets. They were soft and cool against her skin, a welcome change to the flush of heat Tim’s look had caused her. 

“I questioned that, myself,” he said turning to look at her, a smile on his lips, “but, it’s not like you would be the first girl to hightail it away from someone without her clothing.” he made the comment lighthearted but something gnawed at Julie. 

“I’m not going anywhere, Tim,” she told him turning her body to him. “I never walked away from you.” Her words were pointed but honest. 

His face fell, his fingers playing with the loose fabric of the bed. “I know,” he said softly. His voice was quiet in a way that she wasn’t used to hearing from him. “I’m sorry,” he said looking up at her. His eyes held so much emotion behind them, it was a breathless kind of pain that pulled at Julie. 

“You don’t need to apologize,” she said shaking her head. His track record with her wasn’t that great, it was lending to her fear that this will end and she will lose her friend, but he hadn’t needed to apologize to her. She understood him pulling away, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. 

“Actually, I do.” Tim said sitting up. “I do need to apologize because…” he paused, turned the tv off and focused on her as though there was nothing else in the world. “Because you helped me in ways you couldn’t possibly understand or know and I wasn’t there for you when you needed someone.” 

Julie frowned, confused by his words. She couldn’t recall needing someone… unless he was talking about Matt. It would have been nice to be able to talk to him while she was realizing how much she didn’t want to be with Matt anymore, but she had never talked to him about hers and Matt’s relationship. That had been a line she never crossed. Matt was Tim’s friend as well. She would never put him between them. “I don’t blame you, Tim. You had a lot going on.” 

They hadn’t talked about this before. She had never held it against him that he stopped calling or answering her calls. She didn’t blame him in the slightest. He’d lost his career, his marriage and his life with one injury. That was a lot for a psyche to handle. Keeping tabs on the girl that he sometimes talked to on the phone about life, was not something he had had time for and she got that. She really did. She’d understood it after the eight months of dodged calls and unanswered messages. 

“So did you.” he said scooting closer to her, his finger sliding under her chin to will her face up to look at him. “I was a fool to let you go, Jules. Even if I never really did.” 

Julie bit her cheek, her lips pursing as he spoke. “What do you mean you never did?” He had been a fool to let her go, she wouldn’t deny that. She could have helped him, instead he hid from her. 

He slid of the bed, making her frown. That was not an answer. “Tim!” Julie said, sure he was going to find a way to deflect the conversation. She couldn’t watch him just walk away. 

He stopped at the end of the bed, grabbing his jeans and pulling out his wallet before walking over to her side of the bed. “When I was at my worst, when I’d lost everything, I found a reason to keep going.” 

Julie listened intently, unsure where this was going. He never talked about what it was like, what he had gone through with Lana or any of it. It wasn’t a story she knew. She wasn’t sure anyone knew it. 

“I was sitting in the apartment I bought in the middle of downtown Seattle… Jules, you would love the place. It overlooks Pike Street Market from one side and you can see the space needle and the water from the other.” Tim shook his head, clearing out the wistful look in his eyes. 

He was right, she would have loved the apartment. She had loved Seattle and its rain. It was a beautiful state and the people had been so nice. There was so much green in the little state. She understood perfectly why they called it the Evergreen State. 

“I had a bunch of boxes stacked in the place, it was a mess. Bottles of any alcohol I could touch littered the floor.”

The idea made her sad. Tim had worked so hard for his sobriety when he had left Dillon behind. He’d left the stigma everyone had placed on his shoulders and he’d left the brother that only allowed him to indulge. Tim had moved on in his life and he’d worked hard to do it. He’d overcome the adversity the life he had been given caused. 

“I tripped over one of those boxes in one of my hungover states, sending the stuff in it flying.” His eyes sliding passed her as if he was seeing something else. “The box was full of pictures and memories. My state ring, my Panthers jersey, things I hadn’t seen in years. I was in the process of cleaning the mess up in my not completely sober state when I picked up a picture.” 

Julie watched him flip open his wallet and pull out the coin that symbolized his sobriety but it was a piece of paper that she was focused on. He flipped it over, revealing the two of them, at the party that they’d been at when he was drafted. 

“I can still hear you telling me how proud you were of me,” he said, looking up at her. 

Julie let out a shaky breath, blinking back the tears of the memory. She could remember it too. She’d flown out to San Antonio specifically for his draft. Matt had stayed behind, but Julie had been unwilling to let something so important not be shared among friends. He had been picked in the third round of the draft and she had been there to congratulate him when the other people in the room were off mingling. 

“This picture, your words, they gave me the strength I needed. They helped me. That night, I threw out all the alcohol in my house, your words became a permanent echo in my head.” 

She didn’t really know what to say to this. She didn’t know what to do with this knowledge. It was a lot to take in. She’d wondered over the last year if he thought about her, she never imagined he actually did. 

“You’re in my head Jules and my heart. You saved me from the path I put myself on.” He set the picture down on the side table and scooted closer to her. “I didn’t choose this path, Jules, it was laid out in front of me, your voice was my guide.”

She felt the lump in her throat grow. She tried to swallow, words got stuck. She didn’t know what to say, she didn’t even know what to do. She’d never thought she could be as important to someone as she was to him. He credited her with the way his life had changed when she hadn’t done anything. She shook her head. “But I didn’t do anything.” 

“Can’t you see? You did everything, Jules. Your faith in me, even when we weren’t speaking, was enough. It’s always been enough.”

A rebel tear slid down her cheek. She couldn’t imagine what he had gone through the year she’d walked away from him. It broke her heart to know that she had been the one to stop contacting him. She could have kept it up. She could have kept trying, despite knowing he wouldn’t answer. “I gave up on you,” she said a sob breaking through. “You refused to answer my calls and I gave up.” She couldn’t stop the tears now. He hadn’t given up on her, he kept her with him the whole time but she had given up on him. She had stopped calling him. She had tried not to think about him. She had done so much to erase him, he had hurt her. She was wrong, she had left him. 

Tim’s hands covered her cheeks, wiping the tears that flowed easily, away. “I gave you no choice. You told me I could call, you would answer no matter what, but I never did. I was scared. I couldn’t handle your disappointment.”

Julie cried harder, her body falling forward into him. His arms went around her back, pulling her against him. His fingers tangled into her hair, cradling her head as she cried. “I’m so sorry, Tim.” she said softly, her face buried in his chest. 

Tim shushed her, one hand trailing gentle touches down her back. “You have nothing to be sorry for Jules. Just please know I’m never, never leaving you again.” he said it with such conviction that she sat up, wanting to see his face. 

“That maybe you were talking about on the field,” he said, the pad of his thumb pulling the tears from her skin. “I’d like to make that a definite. You’re dad’s already threatened me with a shot gun.” 

Julie gave a teary laugh, shaking her head. She could see him doing that. He was overly protective on a good day. This was something he would go overboard on. 

“I…” Tim took a deep breath, “I love you,” the words came out in a rush, she wasn’t completely sure she’d heard him correctly. He leaned forward, pressed his lips to hers, “I love you,” he said softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Julie closed her eyes, her hands cupping Tim’s cheeks. She pulled him into a hard kiss. Tears streamed down her cheeks. His story, the words he said, they were all so much more than she could have ever thought possible from him. 

It was amazing and humbling. She had no idea how he could think so highly of her. She’d walked away from him when he needed her most. She was just like Lyla and Lana. She was no better. In fact, she was sure she was worse. He’d needed her, she knew he had. He was losing everything and she had given up on him. 

“I’m so sorry, Tim.” she said again, against him lips. “So sorry.” She kissed him harder, trying to make him feel the words that she was saying. “I love you, too.” Those words were words she never thought she would utter to anyone ever again. Outside of Gracie Bell, her mother and father, Julie thought love was a cosmic joke. After everything she’d been through with Matt and what Tim had gone through, there couldn’t be something like love. It was a false illusion orchestrated by the cosmos to fuck with the tiny humans. 

She pulled back from the kiss, her eyes still leaking the tears of happy sadness. She sniffed softly and rested her head against his. 

“So about that maybe…” Tim said quietly, his fingers wiping her tears dry. 

Julie had cried so much in a matter of minutes. She was sure she looked like a mess. Her eyes felt puffy, her nose felt swollen and her lips were so bitten up that they felt too big for her face. “What about it?” she asked, trying to give him a smirk, it probably looked like more of a grimace, considering how her face felt. 

“Jules,” Tim said pulling back to look at her firmly. “I will willingly face down that shotgun your father threatened me with. I want this. You. I want you and everything that comes with it. Crazy shotgun toting father and all.” 

She couldn’t help but laugh at that. She could see her father with his shotgun chasing after Tim for some reason or other. “I want that too, Tim. I really do. Though,” she paused in her words and pressed another kiss to his lips. “Let’s try not to give my father any reason to use the shotgun.” 

Tim chuckled. “I’ll avoid it as best I can, but it is me we’re talking about. It’s almost unavoidable.” She could hear the joke in the words, but it was also kind of true. 

“My father loves you. He’s always loved you, the shotgun will only come out if you do something really stupid, so I know it’s going to remain locked away.” She told him with a firm nod. Eric Taylor was an excellent judge of character. She knew he was. He saw in Tim what everyone else had over looks and he saw it when Tim was just 16. She had questioned her father at the time but after the tornado and Riley, she knew the truth. Tim had a heart of gold, even if he had a little devil (that probably sounded an awful lot like Billy Riggins) on his shoulder. 

“So you’re saying this maybe is a definite and as long as I don’t lose state in a few weeks, I’m safe?” he asked, a smirk growing on his lips. 

“Yes,” Julie laughed smacking him. “Thats what I’m saying.” 

Without warning Julie was lifted from the bed and pulled into Tim’s arms. He grinned brightly up at her and spun her around, a laugh coming out of his mouth. Julie screeched loudly, shocked by the outburst. It was reminiscent of the one on the field though they were wearing decidedly less clothing (none at all actually) and Tim’s smile was even bigger. 

“I love you,” he told her again. 

She was sure, as the words left his mouth, that she would never tire of hearing them from him. When Matt had said it, she had had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. When Tim said it, it was like releasing a bunch of butterflies in her stomach. 

“I love you and we’re going to state!” he put her on the floor, her feet landing softly on the rug. 

“I love you too,” She loved how happy he was in that moment. He was right, they were going to state. It had been an emotional night, starting with the win over East Dillon and ending with this. 

He pulled her back over to the bed where the cocoa and snack had been forgotten and moved them out of the way before pulled her back back down to the bed and wrapped his body around hers. 

It started slow but moved to a hurried pace, hands moving over exposed skin, pulling each other closer, trying to remove all gaps between their bodies. Julie couldn’t get close enough to him. Even when he was inside her, moving deep it wasn’t enough. She never wanted to be apart from him. Their releases came in a frenzy of passion and whispered words of love. His body molded to hers, fit against hers as if they were made for each other. She had never felt closer to someone, even if she was sure she could not possibly be close enough to him. She didn’t believe in destiny but if she did, she would say it was meant to be. She was made for him and he for her. 

Julie curled into his body and closed her eyes. She didn’t care about the rest of the evening, nothing besides this man and the revelations of the night mattered to her. His arm snaked around her midsection pulling her into him. 

He buried his head in her hair and breathed deep. It was an action she was used to by now. Ever since that first night, Tim had taken to burying his nose in her hair. He’d explained it was a scent he’d always associated with home but he never knew what it was. Pears. That was what it was. 

“Hey, Jules?” His voice was sleepy, almost to the point of slurring his words. 

“Yeah?” she asked, her eyes closed. Her head was resting against his pillow, both sharing the same one. 

“I think I’m finally alright,” he told her. 

Julie smiled softly, knowing he was answering the question she had asked him a few months ago. “Yeah, Riggins. I think you are.” She was alright as well. They both were.


	12. The Path Taken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so concludes the story. I'm working an outtake for this story right now which will be a PWP so... enjoy :)

Ch12 - The Path Taken

She is a mortal danger to all men. She is beautiful without knowing it, and possesses charms that she's not even aware of. She is like a trap set by nature - a sweet perfumed rose in whose petals Cupid lurks in ambush! Anyone who has seen her smile has known perfection. She instills grace in every common thing and divinity in every careless gesture. - Cyrano de Bergerac 

 

Tim dropped his keys in the bowl at the front door and kicked off his shoes. He knew better than to walk into the house and leave his shoes on. His girl would skin him alive. Tim loved to push buttons, he could get Julie going in many ways. Angry though, he tried to avoid. She reminded him too much of Coach when she got angry. That was not an imagine he needed on a routine basis. His life had been filled with enough angry rants from Coach T, getting it from Julie; being the cause of the angry rants was not something Tim wanted to add to his long list of abilities. 

“Jules?” He called, his voice echoing around the lower level of their home, it was finally fully put together, but a lot of the pictures hadn’t been hung yet, which meant sound bounced, a lot. She wasn’t down there, he could tell that much but where she was, he had no real idea. 

Tim put his bag, that held his playbooks and the student roster for the new year on the loveseat and walked up the stairs to their bedroom. He half expected to see her sitting on the bed, her hair in a messy ponytail, pens of every color sticking out while she hummed some out of tune song. It was a position he had grown to love over the years. It was her correcting papers look and Tim found it irresistible. He’d been stabbed a few times for trying to distract her, but it never stopped him from trying. 

She wasn’t there though. He was getting used to that as well. He sighed at the empty bed, a frown on his lips. Their lives were moving in strange directions at the moment and Tim was missing his girl. He knew it was all for the best, but it didn’t stop the frown. 

He changed out of his work uniform, the slacks and polo really weren’t a look he enjoyed on himself, but he suffered through it. Instead, he pulled on a Metallica shirt and a pair of dark wash denim and ran his hand through his long hair. He’d cut it for the Seahawks but over the years he’d been growing it out again. He liked his long hair and he knew Julie did too. 

He heard the door downstairs snap shut and turned to head back down, tossing his dirty clothing in the hamper as he went. “Jules?” he asked, walking down the steps. It was a stupid question. If it wasn’t Julie, then they had a bigger problem. Or rather whoever was at the door had a bigger problem. 

He stopped on the stairs when he saw her. Her hair was windswept from coming in from the outside and her frame was loaded down with bags and books. She looked worn out, but she was the most beautiful creature Tim had ever set eyes on. 

“Hey,” he said walking the rest of the way down the stairs, once the ability to move had come back to him. Julie frequently made him forget how to do things. He loved her so much it took over his entire body. 

She looked up at him as he descended the stairs, her bags dropping to the floor in a crumpled heap. “So this going back to school, my idea?” she asked through a heavy sigh. 

Tim reached her in seconds and pulled her into a tight hug. He knew this was going to be a long road to haul. The two of them were starting a whole new life. Together, but also in a new town with new jobs. 

Two years after Tim had become the assistant coach of the Dillon Panthers and two state titles later, Tim Riggins was approached by the Athletic director of Texas A&M in the hopes that he would become the assistant coach for their star team. Tim had, at the time, been unsure of the option. He hadn’t gone looking for a new job. He was happy with the Panthers; with his life. He had everything he had ever wanted, which honestly was Julie. He could have the shittiest job in the world, but as long as he had the love of that girl, he was happy. 

“Hard day?” he asked her, his voice soft and muffled in her hair. 

“Mhm,” she said, nodding against his chest. “If this is the way the term is going to go, I might not make it.” 

Tim’s arms tightened around her and pulled her to the couch. He sat, taking her down with him and lifted her into his lap. “You’re going to make it, have faith in yourself. I do,” he told her pulling away to look at her. His hand cradled her face, his thumb moving in comforting circles over her cheek. 

“How do you know?” she asked, her voice broken and defeated. 

When he had told her about the job with Texas A&M Julie had been the most supportive woman Tim had ever known. No one in his life had ever been more supportive. He’d actually dreaded telling her at first. His life choices didn’t have the best track record for going over well with his girlfriends. Lyla was never happy with his choices. Lana had been ecstatic about the draft but very unhappy that he had signed with Seattle. She was a New York dream girl, moving to Seattle had been hell in her opinion. Telling Julie about Texas A&M and that he might want to take the job was scary. She had been so happy though. It hadn’t even been a choice, Julie told him he had to take it if he wanted it and that she would go where he was. 

Truth be told, he had feared that she wouldn’t go with him. Though, if she had said she wasn’t leaving Dillon, Tim would have never taken the job. It was a dream opportunity; to coach at a college level. Julie was more important though. She was his dream above everything else. The job was second to her. Everything was second to her. 

“I know,” he said grabbing her left hand and pulling it up to his lips, “because You’re a Riggins’ and we don’t do anything halfway. Go big or go home, Jules. No, regrets.” No, regrets. He’d long ago dropped that mantra because he somehow found himself having many regrets. It was back in full force though. Julie had shown him that even his regrets had been done with a reason. Everything he did have made an impact on his life. 

“I’m only a Riggins’ by law,” she told him, a half smile quirking at her lips. 

“True, but if you can put up with my sorry ass, you’re made of tough stuff,” he told her matching her smirk. They’d only been married a few months, but it felt like a lifetime. It was better than anything he’d ever known. “Plus, you have the stubborn Taylor gene,” Tim chuckled. “With that running through your veins, your classes don’t stand a chance.”

When they’d left Dillon, Julie had enrolled in Texas A&M for her masters in literature, deciding not to go back to teaching, but rather finish getting her degrees so that she could teach at a college level and not just at the high school level. They didn’t need money, Julie didn’t need to work, but she wanted to. Tim supported her choice to go back to school as much as she support his choice to take the job at Texas A&M. 

Julie smiled brighter at his words. “It does take a special kind of person to deal with you,” she said leaning forward to kiss his lips. “Good thing I came to your rescue, you might be dead by now if I didn’t.” It was a joke and Tim took it like it was, but it was also truer than almost anything he’d ever said, short of confessing his love to her. 

Tim knew for a fact that if he didn’t have Julie in his life he would not have the life he had. He would be a raging drunk with not one red cent to his name. He had started down that path five years ago with his knee and he’d continued down it for a lot longer than he was proud of. If he’d kept going he would be dead or completely useless to the world. 

“My heroine,” Tim spoke softly against her lips. His hands held her face, pulling her closer to him. He had never been able to keep his hands to himself. Not since the first time he’d kissed her. He never even tried. There was no point. Julie didn’t keep her hands to herself, why should he?

“Damn right,” she said with a giggle. 

Tim grinned, big and bright and pulled away from her. He loved her giggles. They sounded like little bells tinkling in the soft wind on a moonlit night. “Wanna tell me what happened today to make the day so bad?” he asked. 

Tim loved to listen to her talk. He’d always listened to her. Most of the phone conversations they’d had, before they started actually being together had consisted of her talking and him listening. 

Tim was a man of few words, anyone that met him, knew that, but he was very good at listening. Passion was what Julie had always had when she spoke. She made whatever she was talking about interesting because she was passionate about it. Even when she was angry or sad, she was so passionate, Tim could never focus on anything else. 

Their first phone conversation beyond his drunk dialing had proven that to him. She had talked, bitched and damn near screamed out her frustrations so long that his phone had nearly died on her. Had he not been in his room, able to plug it in, it would have. Hers however had died on them. 

He’d called her back the next week and the same thing had ensued. Tim had learned to call her when he had the time and when he was near a charger because talking to her killed phones and caused him to go over his minutes but it had always been worth it. 

“It’s just a lot,” she said sliding off his lap and curling into his side. “I haven’t been in school more than a week and I’m already so overwhelmed, Tim. I don’t know if I can do it.” 

“What’s the problem? You don’t have a professor like last time, do you?” Tim would see that the guy was fired if that was the case. He wanted to get the other guy fired, but this time he actually could. 

“No.” Julie said looking up at him. “Gosh no! Nothing like that. There is just so much homework and things to do. It’s a huge undertaking and…” she bit her lip, breaking off from her thoughts. 

“And what Jules? Are you having second thoughts about doing this?” If she wanted to just be a teacher at the local high school, Tim would support her, but not until he was sure this was what she wanted. 

“It’s going to take me away from you, a lot.” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m not going to be able to go with you to away games. I’m not going to be home when you get home some nights. Its going to be a very long two years.” 

Tim shook his head, a smile on his lips. “Jules, I knew all of that when you said you wanted to get your masters. I’ve no misconceptions about the hard times the next few years will hold for us, but Jules,” Tim said, his hand curling under her chin, his thumb resting just under her lips. “Anything worth having is worth working for, right?” He’d learned that, somewhere along the way. Julie was worth the work, their relationship was too and their jobs were as well. Hard work paid off. Tim had seen it, over and over. 

“When did you get so smart?” She asked, the sound of a jest completely missing. “You’re right, of course you are, but sometimes I just… I want to go out back, toss a football around and forget that anything outside of us exists.” 

“Who says you can’t?” Tim asked sitting up from the couch. “I’ll grab the ball and we can head outside if you want.” He would love to throw the ball with her. She had a pretty good arm, actually and he kind of loved watching her on the field. 

He’d barely known her the year she’d done powderpuff, but she’d been the one to beat his team. He could hardly deny, even back then, she had a grace about her on the football field that no one saw coming. She was the coach’s daughter, sure but she also hated football with a passion that didn’t belong anywhere near Texas or a football field. It was so out of place and shocking that Tim had found it refreshing. Julie had never bowed down to the kings of Dillon football. She still didn’t. 

“I have to read,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t go play.” There was a frown on her face that Tim hated seeing. 

“Then,” he said sliding off the couch and holding his hand out to her. “How about I make dinner,” Tim was actually a really good cook. He’d taken a few classes early in their relationship, wanting to know how to cook vegetarian so that they could both eat and not always order out. He still ate meat, but not nearly as much. “Then I’ll join you on the patio and you can read to me.” 

Julie smiled up at him and took his hand. Tim pulled her up from the couch but didn’t let go of her hand. “I like that idea,” she said pecking him on the lips. “I’ll put my stuff away and meet you outside.” 

She moved quickly out of the living room, scooped up her bags and took the stairs two at a time, making Tim smile. He loved watching her move. He loved knowing that she was in better spirits because of him and his comfort. He loved her. 

Tim headed into the kitchen to get dinner started. He hadn’t decided what to do for dinner until he’d seen her sour mood. Curry chickpeas over a basmati rice was what he would give her. It was one of her favorite dishes. He couldn’t deny her anything and if dinner could bring a smile to her face, he would gladly do it. 

It was a quick dish, one that Tim could do in his sleep, if he felt more comfortable chopping the onion. He refused to cut himself, so chopping in his sleep just wasn’t happening. The rest he could do with his eyes closed though. 

Julie came into the kitchen about twenty minutes later, her hair pulled into a messy knot on the top of her head, still damp from the shower she had obviously taken while he was cooking. “You are evil, Mrs. Riggins,” Tim said. He loved that she had taken his name after they’d gotten married. He loved that she was a Riggins; that she was spoken for and that she was his. He grab the wet bun on the top of her head, shaking her head slight and pouted. “You took a shower and didn’t invite me.” He wasn’t very good at pouting but he knew how to get her to cave with a few looks. She was just as guilty about giving into him as he was to her. He’d learned this. 

“You were busy,” she said pecking him on the lips. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

“Oh yeah?” Tim asked, plating the food for the both of them. “Care to share how?” 

Julie blushed, the pink tinging her freckled nose and cheeks. “Not on your life, Mr. Riggins,” she said haughtily. “You will not distract me from my school work,” she smacked him on the butt, making him jump. The crack echoed off the walls of the kitchen and Tim laughed. “But if you’re good, I’ll show you, after dinner.” 

Tim turned to watch her leave the kitchen, her book and a pen at her side in one hand and two cold bottles of water in the other. He hadn’t even seen her grab those. He was too focused on other aspects of her. 

“Promise?” he called after her a smirk on his lips. He picked up their food and headed out to the patio where he knew his wife would be waiting for him. They’d been at this relationship thing for the better part of three years, dated for most of that, but only married for a few months. Tim couldn’t imagine anything better. The path he had been put on after getting sober again, had led him back to her. He wouldn’t change it for the world.


End file.
